


carrion

by girllikeme



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, No Incest, Not Season/Series 02 Compliant, klaus is kinda a bamf ngl, most of the bad stuff is only implied so dont worry, sorry this is a lil dark but klaus is a goofball so he deserves to be hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23866582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girllikeme/pseuds/girllikeme
Summary: Klaus lives. Klaus dies. He's used to it at this point.Or the one where Klaus opened the door to the other side and it changed nothing, really. Maybe he was destined for sadness.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 97
Kudos: 521





	1. the beginning

Number Four was a weird child. For one thing, his mother had not been pregnant before giving birth to him. For another, he was completely silent. 

His mother prayed and prayed. She blessed him and baptized him. Those eyes. Those big green eyes. She couldn’t stand them. So she left him in his crib and shot herself right between the eyes. 

When Sir Reginald Hargreeves tracked him down he was met with an empty house, a bloody nursery and a silent baby. 

He stepped over the mother’s rotting body, and took the uncanny baby back to the Academy. 

He should’ve taken her death for what it was.

An omen. 

_____________________________

Klaus was 7 the first time he visited the mausoleum.

“Number Four, come with me,” Reginald says, one night. Number Four blinked in shock, and struggled to contain a smile. Four was receiving special training, he hadn’t thought his powers were anything special, he had thought his powers were useless and unsatisfactory. 

Four scrambled out of his chair and smirked smugly at One, Two, and Five, who were seething at Four’s chance to impress their father. They left the dining room without eating dinner, but Four couldn’t find it within himself to care.

Reginald gripped Four on the shoulder and marched him outside to the car. His shoulder hurt from Reginald’s grip. He glanced at Susie, his favorite ghost, who smiled at him with blue lips. Four scrambled away from Reginald’s grip and into the car, and watched the buildings grow shorter and then the trees become taller. Something stirred in the pit of his stomach, and he felt nails scratching at the door. But, as always, he kept the door firmly shut.

The car stopped at a cemetery, and Reginald pulled the door open and grabbed Four, before marching him over to a tall, marble building. Four turned to look at Susie, but she was behind the cemetery gates, water pouring from mouth to the soil below. 

Reginald opened the door to the marble building. Four had a second to realize it was not a building, but in fact a tomb, before Reginald tossed him into the dark, evil space. 

“You will stay here till morning, and tell me what you have discovered. Do not disappoint me Number Four,” intoned Reginald, slamming the door shut and leaving Four in the dark.

Four closed his eyes and tried to breathe, but he couldn't. There was something evil in this room. The nails on the other side of the door scratched harder, and plaster dust filled the air. As always, whatever was on the other side wanted out. He heard a scraping sound from the corner of the mausoleum, and tensed. 

“What a pretty boy you are,” a deep voice purred right in Four’s ear. Four opened his eyes and saw bloodshot eyes. staring. right. at. him. 

Four puffed his chest and glared, “Boys aren’t pretty, _sir._ ”

The man rose to his feet, and a swarm of the dead circled Four, “Well, we’ll see about that.” And when he smiled, there was blood on his teeth. 

Four scooted to the farther corner of the room, closed his eyes, and began to scream.  
______________________

When Reginald opened the mausoleum doors, Number Four was staring blankly forward, with tears rolling down his face. Reginald stalked forward and struck him across the face with his cane, leaving a trail of blood.

“Number Four, what did you learn? Or have you disappointed me again?” Reginald questioned.

Number Four met Reginald’s eyes, and Reginald felt a chill run down his spine. They were not the eyes of a boy, they were the eyes of something… other.

Number Four stood on shaking feet and glared, “I am a _very_ pretty boy, sir.”

Reginald turned on his heel and dragged the boy back to the Academy.

______________________

At twelve years old Number Four Klaus was… different.

He was either high, drunk, or both. So when he showed up to dinner five minutes late, disheveled, covered in bruises, and notably, wearing Vanya’s Academy skirt, no one thought anything of it. And if he winced as he sat down, well, that’s a whole can of worms that Klaus couldn’t be bothered with. 

Klaus had gotten more and more disobedient after that fatal day, wearing Mom’s high-heels. When Reginald saw him, wobbly on his feet and needing just a little push before he went tumbling down the staircase, Klaus felt something in him, something on the other side of the door, just begging to open. 

“Number Four, you seem to be of the belief that you are exempt from the rules of this Academy. If you cannot be bothered to show up on time, surely you do not deserve to eat. You will remain seated, and await your punishment after dinner,” sneered Reginald, from the head of the table.

Klaus stared straight down, at the food on his plate. _Wow, you sure know how to make a girl feel special, Reggie._

His siblings ate their dinner, quietly and obediently, while Klaus could only watch. Klaus smiled, wide and sharp. Raising his head to the ceiling he noticed a crack in the paint. If only the crack was bigger, if only he could rip this house to shreds with his hands. _If only._

Klaus laughs, and he doesn’t stop laughing long after Reginald orders his siblings to bed and, once again, drags Klaus back to the mausoleum.

It’s fucking funny.  
____________________

When Klaus was fourteen, something shifted.

Cornered against the mausoleum wall, he keeps his eyes safely shut. While The Man whispers horrible things into his ears, surrounded by the evil of the fucking family, he breaks. 

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” 

“Come on, pretty boy, don’t be like that. That’s against my rules,” whispered The Man. He smiled his bloody smile and gripped his cross tighter. Blood and brain matter slid off the cross to the floor. 

“No,” said Klaus, “Get away from me.”

The Man marched forward, and Klaus scrambled backward. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. Klaus stood and looked around. The door. He rushed forward and pushed. His head hit the marble wall sharply, and he was back in the Mausoleum. The nails scratching at the door finally, finally, scratched harder, and Klaus pushed the door to the other side wide open. Klaus shuddered and screamed as blue light filled the mausoleum. His hands shimmered and pulsed blue.

The Man reached Klaus, and stroked his cheek, grinning like the cat who caught the canary. Klaus whimpered.

“Oh, Klaus, why thank you,” The Man hollered to the rest of the ghosts, “We can finally initiate our newest member!” The ghosts surrounded Klaus and raised their crosses high in the air. 

Klaus closed his eyes as a hand stroked his hair. Another hand ripped at his clothes. Another hand clawed at his stomach. Klaus giggled and didn’t stop laughing until The Man wound his hands around his neck and squeezed. He sputtered and wheezed, as tears ran down his face. And he heard, faintly, a resounding crack as everything went black.

___________________

When Klaus came to, the world was black and white. He rubbed at his neck, for some reason, feeling like it should hurt. He clumsily stood on his shaking feet. 

“You don’t belong here,” sneered a little girl, ethnically ambiguous, and somehow looking down at him from her seat on a bicycle. 

“Well, ex-squeeze me! It’s not like I meant to be here! I don’t even know where here is…” muttered Klaus. _Who did she think she was bossing him around?_

“I’m God, you moron. You died. Now get out,” the girl-who was actually God, so maybe she did have a right to boss him around but that’s semantics- angrily rode away on her bicycle. Leaving Klaus alone, in a cluster of grey trees, standing unsurely on grey grass, starting up at a grey sky. He died. He was dead.

Klaus sighed, and shivered at the feeling of the open door. He had opened it. The ghosts were real. Klaus made the ghosts real. The ghosts killed him. Klaus killed himself. 

Klaus smiled humorlessly and jumped through the door, back to the other side. 

__________________

Klaus opened his eyes to the feeling of hands roaming his body. His fingernails stung, the beds were ripped and bloody. Raising a hand to his head, it came back sticky with blood. Raising his head he made eye contact with The Man, who had his big hands pressed against Klaus’s thighs. He blinked his bloodshot eyes in shock, in fear. Klaus took the moment to observe him. This ghost who had screamed, taunted, and tormented him for years. This man who took every opportunity to tell him what he thought Klaus was. _Pretty._ This man who took every opportunity to tell him what he would do to Klaus, and then did it.

Klaus was so angry he shook. He used his broken nails to pull himself to his feet and launched himself at the ghost. He ripped and pulled and teared and bit at him. He snarled and yelled and screamed back just as loud as the spirits. The Man ripped Klaus and threw him to the ground, as Klaus gasped as the ghosts surrounded him. Yelling. So. Fucking. Loud. 

Klaus smiled bitterly as the world once again turned blue. He rose above the marble floor, which was slick with blood and gore. His shaking hands glowed a sickening blue and he laughed as he finally tore the ghosts to fucking shreds.

He isn’t afraid anymore.

Klaus awaits Reginald, sitting in a pool of guts, limbs, and blood. Reggie’s gasp of shock when he wrenches the mausoleum gates open to find disappointing, scared, worthless Number Four surrounded by the remnants of that dreadful cult with such a sweet disposition for young, brown haired boys was so. damn. satisfying.

Fuck Reginald. Fuck them all.

________________________

One night as Klaus lay in bed staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, lying curled around Ben as he shuddered and shook, he finally asked him a question.

“Benny?”

“Yes, Klaus.”

“Where do **they** come from?”

“The other side.”

“No wonder they love me so; I’m from there too,”

________________________

If Klaus used to be different before, now he’s something completely... _other_.

He’s cold to the touch, and his eyes bright, intense, and old are almost too unnerving to ever make eye contact with. He’s light on his feet, and walks like he’s floating. His smile is a little too sharp. His skin is a little too pale. His body is a little too skinny. All in all, Klaus is a little too much. 

Reginald bought ouija boards and tarot cards to try to channel and control his powers. _Ha, you can’t control me old man. If he thought Klaus was too much, he would just get bigger._

Klaus never forgot the feeling when he opened the door… how the ghosts thought they finally had a hold on him. _Poor bastards_ , it’s Klaus power, not theirs. He had dealt with their fucking screaming and whining for 14 years. Not anymore and never again.

So, Klaus dropped the syringe of heroin, he had paid a heavy price for it. He rubbed his sore throat, and aching jaw with a sigh. He smashed it under his boot, and left the alley.

Maybe he’ll stick with weed and dad’s liquor cabinet for now.

________________________

When Five disappears Klaus cries and cries and cries.

He stares blankly at his reflection in the bathroom, and decides _fuck it._

Klaus stumbles out of the Academy, already clumsy from the bottle he took from Reginald. He searches for his dealer and takes everything they give him, and gives anything they ask of him. Klaus will not see Five. He refuses to look for him. Klaus will not deal with Reginald and the fucking ouija boards. So, he goes out gets hello and goodbye tattooed on his hands. 

Number Four. The Seance. Human fucking ouija board. 

When Klaus stumbles back into the mansion, a week later, with one hand holding the neck of a bottle and the other dangling a joint, he feels really fucking lonely. Especially for someone who is never fucking alone. 

He creeps through the house and into the kitchen. Little Vanya is at the table, crying as she makes a peanut-butter and marshmallow sandwich.

“Hey, V,” he stumbles forward and clumsily sits down, rests his head on her shoulder.

“Hi Klaus. You haven’t, um, you haven’t seen him?” she asks, and her voice is so small. Fragile like a baby bird. If Klaus was kinder maybe he would’ve held her, but he’s not. 

He stands, and angrily mutters, “No, I haven’t. And I won’t. I won’t. God, I wish I was like you.”

Klaus doesn't see her stricken, sad face as he leaves. Maybe if he had things could’ve been different. 

He stumbles up the stairs and opens the door to his room. On his bed is a ouija board. And a note. It reads, ‘Look for him’. Klaus giggles, he doesn’t need the goddamn board anymore, Reggie. He’s the fucking Seance. Klaus sighs anyways, he closes his eyes and looks through the door. Looks for Five. 

He’s not there. 

What a fucking waste. Klaus tosses the bottle and the joint out the window. Whatever.

________________________

Klaus holds Benny’s hand and strokes his hair. Ben whimpers from his place on Klaus' bed. Shhh, Klaus thinks into the open void on the other side of the door, do you think you could be a bit kinder?

The Horrors growl and stir, and Ben cries out, but they reluctantly simmer down. Klaus strokes Ben's hair.

“You're lucky **they** like me, Benny.”

“Thank you, Klaus. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Klaus sighs, curls around Ben and they drift to sleep.

________________________

They’re on a mission. Another bank robbery. Luther throws a man against a wall with a snap as their neck, face, ribs, all shatter on impact. Ben uses his tentacles and rips gunmen to shreds, tears pouring down his face. Klaus makes sure to coo at The Horrors, and keep Ben safe.

Diego and Allison are distracting the robbers while Klaus is meant to help the hostages escape. A little girl. Her mother. A group of elderly ladies. He scoops the girl into his arms, she's so warm and so small. Her little arms wrap around his neck and Klaus smiles. 

“I’m Maddie!” she whispers in his ear. 

“It’s nice to meet you Maddie, I’m Klaus.”

He urges the ladies towards the door and Klaus grabs the mothers hand, “Come on, we need to get out of here.” She nods and stands up, holds his face in her hands, and kisses his forehead. 

“Thank you, thank y-”

Klaus gasps as she slumps forward. Blood spraying out of her chest, covering Klaus in blood. He falls under her weight, and pushes her off him. He cradles Maddie in his arm. She's gasping and shaking. Her chest is caved in from the bullet. Went through her mother and right into her.

“Fuck, shit. Hey, kiddo, it’s okay. It’s okay!” Klaus scrambles up and cradles her closer to his chest.

The man standing across him holds a gun in his hand. Allison and Diego must’ve missed him. 

Klaus sees red. His hands shake blue as he opens the door, and the mother of this child, this kid, dying in his arms, appears. Bloody. Angry. She jumps on him, with an anguished scream knocks him to the ground and slams his head into the concrete until he’s a bloody mess. 

Klaus turns, runs, “Allison! Allison! Make her alright, please? Allison!” Allison creeps forward, looking at the pool of blood on the floor, on Klaus. On Maddie, who cries big heaving sobs. 

“I heard a rumor, I heard a rumor you were alright, ok?” Allison says frantically.

Maddie smiles, and at the edge of his vision he can see her mother sobbing over her corpse. 

“Thanks, Klaus! Thank you!” she sighs dreamily. Klaus sobs and she reaches a hand to wipe the tears off his cheek.

“Bye bye!” 

And she's dead. He drops her body next to her mother. And walks out the door of the bank. He’s done here.

Later that night, if anyone heard the sobbing and pleading and _I’m sorrys_ from Klaus’ bedroom, no one mentions a thing.

______________________

Klaus is in the bathtub, pondering the razor blade he has positioned above his wrist. He slices. _Oh boy._

He slips his head under the water and watches the tub turn read and his vision go black. _What a joke._

______________________

When he opens his eyes, the world is once again, black and white. He’s really starting to hate these colors.

“I told you, you don’t belong here,” sneers God. She is sitting on a picnic blanket, and holding a tiny plate with cucumber sandwiches. 

Klaus reaches forward and takes one off her plate, and smiles. 

“Oh honey, I don’t belong anywhere.”

______________________

Luther pushes frantically through the front door. Holding Ben. Ben.

Luther is screaming. Screaming for Mom. Screaming. Just like the ghosts.

Ben is on the operation table. His torso is split. It’s a mangled mess of meat and bone. His eyes are closed. Klaus stares at the corpse and tries to ignore Ben. Ben who is in the corner of the infirmary, sobbing and shaking. 

Luther makes eye contact with him,”It’s my fault. He asked for you, you know. He said you could fix it.”

“I can’t fix this.”

______________________

Klaus packs his bags on his sixteenth birthday. By bags he means one backpack with a pair of Mom’s heels, a pack of cigarettes, and a couple of Ben’s books.

Ben sighs from the doorway, “Don’t you think you ought to pack some clothes? Money? It’s dangerous out there, Klaus. You have nowhere to go.”

Klaus laughs and smiles bitterly, “You only live once, Benny.” 

Klaus laughs and he can’t stop laughing. _If only._


	2. fallen angel

Klaus sighed. Some girl wheezed and choked next to him. Overdose. 

That could’ve been him if he had lived another life. She continued to choke on her own vomit, and let out one last hurrah of a breath. Her ghost rose from her old shell. She stared at the lifeless corpse and screamed. 

Klaus stood up and crushed the cigarette under his boot, “Get a life.”

______________________

Klaus is 17. He has worked plenty of unsavory jobs. Right now he’s bullshiting at detective work. It’s pretty easy, when you consider what he can do.

Some old woman is looking for her granddaughter, if he’s going by the dead girl standing just past her shoulder, she’s not going to like what she finds.

Klaus tries to break the news to her gently. Benny says he needs to work on his empathy.

______________________

In a department store, filled with dresses and skirts and shoes, Klaus stumbles upon the most _to die for_ kitten heels. They are pink with a cute little strap on the heel. He has to have them. 

When he goes to pick them up a salesman comes over. Asks if they’re for his girlfriend.

Klaus looks him straight in the eye when he tells him, no actually, they’re for me. So he doesn’t miss the hate in his eyes and scowl on his lips. The fact that this particular wad of bills came from sucking some guy off one alleyway over makes him smile ironically. He’s a regular Alanis.

He pays and leaves the store, but not before he hears “Fucking faggots.” 

So, Klaus decides it’s time to start a little trouble.

“What did you just call me?”

“I called you a faggot, faggot.”

Klaus sashayed forward, and leaned over the counter, getting right into his space, “Now, _darling,_ that is no way to treat a valued customer!”

The man faced turned beet red as he spluttered in rage, and he stomped around the counter before grabbing Klaus and pulling him towards the door. Klaus made sure to slip the wallet out of his back pocket before he handed on a heap in front of the store.

“If I see you around here again, I will call the police, you fucking fairy,” he growled, slamming the store door shut. 

Klaus daintily waved with his goodbye hand, before rising gracefully to his feet. His hands glowed faintly blue, and before he could think he felt something _twist_ and a pull in his gut. The man screamed and cursed, while Klaus and Ben watched in awe as a blue light filled the store. Ripping it to shreds.

With dresses flying, drywall shaking, and glass shattering, Klaus began to laugh. Hysterically.

“Death with you is more eventful than life with eldritch beings that resign in my stomach” snorted Ben.

___________________________

It’s the middle of the night. He’s so cold and Klaus can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe. He wants to scream, but he can’t because he can’t fucking breathe.

Ghosts are everywhere. They are so big and so loud. Klaus could close the door, he knows he could. But everytime he wants to, he can’t.

Because he sees Ben. His little Ben. People seem to be of the belief that Klaus’ the little brother. They don’t know. Klaus has been protecting Ben for a long time. And the one time he wasn’t there for him he died. 

So, every time he wants to close that damn door he holds Ben a little harder. And maybe it’ll get easier to breathe.

Maybe.

__________________

Klaus is 18 and he’s sober… sometimes. 

Except for now. Because his head is spinning. He just feels so _high_. He could float if he wanted- wait no he couldn’t. He can only float when he’s sober. Where was he?

Oh. 

The hospital. Ben was so worried. He doesn’t need to.

That’s the funny thing. No one needs to worry. Hilarious.

He’s pretty funny. Life is a joke and he’s just playing the game.

______________________

Klaus has a problem. He likes to pick fights.

Ben would call it purposely endangering himself. Whatever.

Pain helps. He can’t die. He doesn’t think so anyways.

He sighs dreamily from his spot on the ground of the dirty alley he likes to call home (sometimes).  
(he can get a hotel every once in a while. even have a shower. _bliss._ )

He coughs up blood and smiles up at the lady cop leaning over him. Eudora, her name tag reads.

He waves his goodbye hand as, once again, the world goes black.

He’s sensing a pattern here.

The world flashes between beeps, and black and white, and Ben, and ghosts, and a cold dark room and a cold dark door.

Klaus opened his crusty eyes and blinked brightly at the bright light. _Ugh, please God. You little bitch, you couldn’t just let me die?_

Someone snorted next to him, “I think you did die for a second there. Had to resuscitate you.” Klaus looks to his left. Eudora. He didn’t think he had said anything out loud.

“You got the shit beat outta you, care to explain what happened?” She leaned forward, frowning. Klaus was pretty sure this wasn’t proper police etiquette. Whatever. What did he know. Fuck Blue Lives.

“Ha! You should’ve seen the other guy.”

“Klaus, the other guy is dead.”

Oh.

“Look, the only reason I’m here is… I know your brother, okay? Diego. He asked for a favor. Please. Tell me there’s a reason.”

Klaus looked at the corner of the hospital room. That man. Fucking vermin. 

He shuddered as the man sneered at him, “Fucking _pretty boy_. You were really fucking asking for it. Weren’t you, slut? Such a shame, the thing’s I coulda done to you-”

 _Pretty boy._

No. No, no, no, no, no! 

He’s not. He is _not_ anyone’s goddamn pretty boy. Not anymore.

Fuck! He can’t- he can’t.

Klaus faintly realizes he’s screaming and he can’t breathe and he doesn’t know what’s going on and where’s Ben? Ben?

“Klaus! Hey, Klaus. Listen to me, please? P-please, j-just breathe!”

Oh. He would recognize that stutter anywhere. 

“Diego?” Klaus unfolds himself, from his position against the wall. He must’ve fallen off the bed, and crawled to the corner. He rubs at his eye’s and they come back black. He’s crying.

He looks up at Diego. 

“Where’s Ben?”

Diego blinks in shock. “Klaus, Ben’s dead… Are you okay? W-what happened?”

Klaus smiles, and reaches into his boot. Pulling out a joint and lighting it, he takes a long drag.

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Going by the hoard of ghosts surrounding him, he never had. I took care of it.”

He had fucking took care of it all right, and judging by the blood dripping from the man’s groin, he had done a pretty good job.

____________________

Klaus is… trying. He’s also high. Only weed, though.

He holds his hello hand out in front of him, “Care to dance?”

Ben smiles and places his hand into Klaus’, “Why yes, of course!”

Klaus twirls around the grass in the park. If his feet dance above the soft grass, he ignores it. It’s the middle of the night, but it’s still warm.

Ben’s peels of laughter as he dips Klaus are enough.

For now.

_____________________

Klaus is being mugged. Usually, he would take it. Or fight fair. Drag it out.

But, they tried to take Homophobe Asshole’s Stolen Wallet. And he had deserved that wallet, really. 

So, when some random rando pushes Klaus against a wall and gropes for his back pocket, Klaus leaps at him, wraps his thighs around his neck and flips him. He didn’t mean to snap his neck.

These things happen.

He goes to court… something about ‘equivalent response’. Whatever.

Point is: Klaus goes to jail. 

He smirks at the whispers that pass him by.

‘They say he bit some guys dick clean off’. ‘Did you hear about the Umbrella Kid? Yeah, he snapped someone's neck with his _thighs_!”

He can’t get out of here soon enough. The ghosts are something dreadful. They follow Klaus around, whispering horrible, violent thoughts.

Really, he could’ve turned out much worse. Telling a child from the age of zero days old how to kill someone. What to put in someone’s drink. How many pills to take to overdose. How to tie a rope. But, here, it’s ten times worse.

He talks to Ben. Screw the looks everyone gives him. People on the streets know who he is.

He gets released after 12 months. On good behavior. 

When he gets out he’s 21. He has his very first legal drink.

Then another. And another after that.

_________________

Ben insists Klaus buys a gun. 

“Look Klaus, you are a danger to yourself and a danger to others. Your powers are too strong to use against regular civilians. I know you live a… dangerous lifestyle. At least this way, you can have protection without endangering yourself,”

Klaus allows it. He did discover most of his powers late. _Too strong._ If only Reggie knew. 

He knows his emotional state and lack of control is dangerous.

The problem is, he doesn’t really care.

Klaus _acquires_ a gun. Ben sighs from the corner of the motel room.

__________________

Klaus has always been good at languages. English is actually his second.

German was first. His first word was _böse._

It was the main word he heard as a child. His mother called him _böse._ Evil.

Klaus considers it a warning. And truth.

________________

Klaus is high. He took some pills from some girl at some party on some street.

When he’s high everything is less. He’s so used to it all being _too much. Klaus is too much._

His feet are solid on the ground. He is secure. It makes him clumsy. 

It makes him malleable.

When he sobers up the next day he feels dirty. Used.

He sighs as he sits up. Blood is matted in his hair, and he chokes on his own vomit. 

He goes to rehab. 

The walls are white. He shares a room with a woman. She’s around thirty. Her eyes have bags and you can the bones under her skin. He wonders if he looks like that. Fragile. Easily broken.

He sits in a group therapy session and tries not to laugh at Ben’s snide comments. His amusement must be obvious, and one of the workers asks, “Do you find something funny, Klaus?”

“It’s just… I’m not like you all. I’m okay. I’ve got it under control.”

The worker leans forward, “Klaus, the first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem. You have to accept that you are human, and the drugs are hurting you. They are killing you,”

Klaus sighs and leans back in his chair. 

Human his ass. 

Klaus doesn’t know what he is but he’s not dying.

He’s not living either.

_________________

Where is he? What is doing? There's no path for him. He’s dead.

He’s always been dead.

He presses the gun against his head, ignores Ben’s gasp of shock, and pulls the trigger.

_____________________

Black and white. Get high. Sober up. Live. Die.

Klaus blinks up at God, she smiles coyly. Extends a hand.

Klaus takes it and follows.

They are in a small office space. It’s darkly lit, and the walls are lined with empty seats. Inlaid in a wall is the only source of light: a small aquarium with a single grinning eel. It’s the kind of aquarium where it connects two walls. However, on the other side the only thing he can see is distant fire and smoke. A familiar door is the only exit. He doesn’t know how he got here.

“Do you know where you are?” she asks.

Klaus nods.

“Good, I hope you didn’t make any assumptions about Hell or Satan or anything,” She grins, and walks out the door. Klaus’ door. 

Klaus turns, pulls a chair towards the aquarium and sits. He presses his hello hand to the glass of the tank. Smiles his most charming smile.

The eel turns to look at him. “Thank you for the introduction, Number Four, but I know what you are.”

“My name is Klaus.”

“Alright. Do you know who I am?”

Klaus leans back against the chair, “I’m pretty sure she just told me not to make any assumptions.”

The eel huffs, but smiles. It’s teeth are wide and sharp. Not a smile. A bearing of teeth. “You are certainly amusing. It matters not what you call me. I have the same function. She is life. I am not. You defy me. You are not alive. You are not dead.”

“I’m not human. I’m not alive.”

“Wrong, you are plenty human. The difference is that you are special. Special to me and special to your ‘God’. There are _extenuating circumstances_ considering your status as alive or dead.”

Oh. He’s human. That should be a relief. It feels more like a weight on his chest. 

“I have instructions for you. You need to learn.”

“That’s all?”

“It is not a simple task. You will understand in the end. What do you want Klaus? Find me when you figure it out.”

Klaus blinks and he’s back in the land of the living.

Well, the land of the living and Klaus.

_______________________

Klaus has been hospitalized many times. He never had to worry about the bill.

One call to Allison and it’s taken care of. 

“Klaus… I can’t just sit here and watch you kill yourself. I can’t keep doing this,” Allison sighs on the phone. Her voice sounds rough. She’s been smoking.

“Listen, listen Allison! I’m not… you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine. Hey, look maybe I could fly out to Cali? Meet this Patrick guy? I’m getting better. I am,” Klaus pleads. He never talks to Allison. She is hard to talk to, ironically.

It’s hard to forget the fear of doing whatever she asked, whenever she asked. 

She doesn’t even know why he's hospitalized. She just assumes. 

The doctors say it was a close call. The bullet skimmed his head. Yeah, right.

“Klaus, I just… I can’t.” 

She hangs up. 

Well, shit.

______________________

Klaus pays for the bill. Ben fumes from the corner while Klaus pretends to moan under his _very unprofessional_ doctor’s dick.

He gets the job done. Clinically and efficiently.

_______________________

Klaus is having one of his few rare good days.

It’s warm. Warm like Ben used to be when he was so, so cold.

Maddie and her mother, covered in blood, are watching the ducks at the pond. He sits with Ben and makes fun of people’s clothes, while Ben whines about going to the ocean, _please, please Klaus oh my god. Take me to the ocean, or I-_

“Klaus?” Exclaims Vanya. She’s short. Hasn’t grown since the last time he saw her. Which was when he was probably around 16 or 17. _Geez, his family life really does suck._

“Oh! Vanya! Hi! Um, long time no see!” He shoots up off the bench, and trots over to her. Tentatively wraps her in a hug. She stiffens in shock, then melts. Like she hasn’t been hugged in a long time.

“Oh, yeah… It’s been what six, seven years?”

Klaus smiles, “I’m going with lucky number seven.”

Vanya’s face reddens, “Oh. Um, thanks. Do you- do you want to get coffee?”

Klaus wraps his arm in hers, “Only if you're paying!”

He misses the way her expression shatters. Ben doesn’t.

They make their way towards a coffee shop. Vanya orders hers black with cream. Klaus orders a caramel frappuccino with extra caramel and extra whipped cream. Vanya smothers a smile.

“So! V, what have you been up to?” Asks Klaus. She takes a sip of her drink, and hunches her shoulders.

“Oh, you know. I’m in the orchestra now, third chair. I do lessons sometimes too.”

Klaus smiles, he doesn’t know what that means. He looks over at Ben, who’s lounging over the table. Ben shrugs. “How am I supposed to know, dumbass?”

“Shut it!” Klaus mutters. Vanya looks shocked.

“Oh, not you! Sorry, it’s loud in here.”

Vanya looks at him, “Are you conjuring someone? You're sober?”

Klaus sighs. _Conjuring._ His siblings always seemed to have the impression that he has to physically conjure ghosts to be able to see them. Like they are not always there. Even when he’s high, the ghosts are there. 

“Yeah, I’m sober. I’m not conjuring anyone. It’s just Ben.”

Vanya’s expression shutters. “Klaus, is Ben always there?”

“Unfortunately. The fucker never shuts up. Said with love,” And he blows a kiss to Ben, who just flips him off. _Rude._

“He’s not real. You’re just making this up. God, Klaus! You couldn’t even bother to be sober for his funeral. And now you’re still lying about him being here? I bet you’re not even sober!” Exclaims Vanya.

Klaus' heart stops. Even after all this time, all these years, no one trusts him. No one believes him. Ben growls from the table, and swats at Vanya like a particularly angry cat. His hands go straight through her. 

Klaus stands up, and ignores Vanya’s cry of _Wait, Klaus!_

Fuck his fucking family.

_________________________

Klaus ruffles through the clothes of some dead girl in a back alley. She has a handful of cash in her purse, a lovely Vivienne Westwood necklace, and a vintage fur coat. He slips on his new gifts and shrugs off his old coat. 

The dead girl giggles off to the side. “Ha, well it looks like I’m not gonna be using those anytime soon.”

“Oh, well in that case, I will make sure nothing goes to waste!” Gleefully exclaims Klaus, as he shrugs off his old pair heels and slips on her platform boots. 

The girl gasps, and steps forward, “You look great!”

“Thank you, thank you!” Klaus curtsies and grabs her hand, spinning the ghost around.

Unfortunately, he missed the policeman. He doesn’t miss the sound of the policeman cocking his gun and shining his flashlight in Klaus eyes. Klaus looks down at the scene. Some crazy looking crossdresser rifling through the belongings of a well to do girl. Who’s dead. Yikes.

“Put your hands in the air!”

“Alright, alright,” However, apon putting his hands in the air and exposing his tattoos, he hears a gasp of shock.

“Klaus?!”

Klaus slowly drops his hands, steps forward and squints. 

Diego. 

How to explain, how to explain…

“Oh Diego! You’re a cop now, huh? Wow, I’m so proud!”

“Oh, thanks Klaus. Yeah actual- wait a minute. Stops deflecting! What are you doing?”

Klaus smirks and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket. Lighting it and taking drag, he replies, ”Oh, you know. Some light shopping.” The girl cackles from where she’s sprawled out next to her body while Ben sighs and shakes his head.

“Klaus, be serious. Please tell me you didn’t kill her. Out of anyone in our family to be an actual murderer I never thought it would you.”

Klaus takes another drag, “I actually didn't kill her! This time.” 

Diego flinches at the mention of the last couple of times he got in trouble with the police. The first time, he had seen the body. It was one thing to hear about Klaus ‘taking care of it’ and another to see the bloody remains of what his dick used to be. 

Diego walks forward and handcuffs Klaus before shoving him in the car, and reports the body to the nearest patrol car, “Unbelievable,” Deigo muttered. 

They drove to the station in tense silence. Klaus mutterering to Ben, and Diego ignoring it. 

When they pulled up to the station and walked inside, Diego plucked the cigarette out of Klaus’s mouth, and ignored his objections. Thankfully, Klaus was distracted by Eudora.

“Eudora! My favorite lady cop!” Shouts Klaus, and he skips over to her desk and leans over to give her a hug. Except he was handcuffed, so he just pressed his body against her, lost his balance and fell. Eudora caught him as he fell, and he looked up from where she was now dipping him like some fair maiden.

“My guardian angel,” He exclaimed, batting his lashes. She scoffed and dropped him.

“Diego, what is going on here?” 

“Oh you know, my little brother just murdered someone. Again.”

Klaus wiggled from the floor, “Hey! I resent that!”

Diego sighed and pulled Klaus up on his feet and dropped him in the interrogation room. Klaus propped his feet onto the table. His hands glowed blue as he levitated his lighter and cigarette. He pursed his lips as he concentrated and lit the cigarette and raised it to his lips.

“You’re getting better at that,” Ben congratulated, and he laid on the ground, facedown. Klaus raised an eyebrow at him, “Oh, you know. Just tired from dealing with your shit. Lunatic.”

Klaus blew him a kiss. 

The door opened and Eudora walked in and sat down. She even had the little recording thing. How cute.

“Klaus, I need you to tell where you were at the time of the incident. Any evidence that you have. What happened?”

“Well, you see. I was walking down the street. When I felt someone dying… I creep into the alleyway and find her! She’s gasping and choking and whatnot, but then I notice her clothes. She is very well dressed, so I make a purchase or two. And then, low and behold, in comes my second favorite brother! I come here and see you, which is really such a treat. And.. yeah!” 

Eudora frowns. “Well, first of all. That’s stealing. That’s actually just theft, Klaus. Second of all, what?”

“I had her permission!” He sighs. The dead girl nods and whispers, “ I really wasn’t using them.” Ben groans from his spot on the floor. 

“See!” Klaus points to the empty corner of the room. Eudora facepalms.

“What do you mean? She’s dead, Klaus. You said you… felt her dying? Did you talk to her before?” Eudora asks, looking at him like he’s crazy.

She’s not wrong, but she’s not right either. Ben seems to realize this as well, as he gets to his feet and looks at her interestingly, “Oh, crap. She really doesn’t know. This’ll be fun.” 

Klaus cocks his head towards the mirror, and smiles, “Oh, Eudora. Seems you’ve been left in the dark.”

He pops his thumb out of the socket and slips his hello hand out of the handcuffs, and holds it out to her, and he giggles at the sound of someone scrambling out of the room, “Number Four, Klaus Hargreeves. Nice to meet you, I assume you know my brother-”

“Klaus! Please, I h-hadn’t explained it y-yet.” Yells Diego, bursting into the room.

Eudora blinks down at Klaus’ hand. Steadily shakes it and glares at Diego, “What. The. Fuck.”

Klaus laughs and sits back down on the table. Criss cross applesauce.

“Are you sure your power isn’t causing chaos?” Mumbles Ben, but he’s smiling.

In the end, Klaus gets a job offer. Something about seeing dead people being very useful for solving crime. 

He declines, and high fives Ben, “Fuck Blue Lives!” They exclaim in unison.

He gets another offer, to dinner with Eudora and Diego.

This one he accepts.

_____________________

Klaus sighs as he slips into the hotel bathtub. He never stays long, but it’s better than when he jumped from alleyway to shelter to rehab to jail.

The water scalds him. He likes the burn, he’s always cold.

He looks at Ben. And looks down at the knife in his hand. He has three scars on each wrist. 

There are tears running down Ben’s face. He knows better than to try to stop Klaus by now. The last time Ben tried to stop him Klaus had whispered to The Horrors. _Poor things, trapped on the other side. Wouldn’t you like to come out? So alone down there, wouldn’t you like some company?_

Ben hadn’t spoken to him for a month. He deserved it. It was Klaus’ fault Ben died.

Klaus pressed the knife down, hard.

He smiled mirthlessly.

Lucky number seven.

____________________

Diego and him hang out occasionally. He goes shopping with Eudora.

He’s there for the fallout of him being fired from the police department. His breakup with Eudora.

He tries to comfort Diego, he does.

All it takes is one mention of Ben, however, and their tentative relation shatters.

“Get out.” Diego slammed the door in his face.

Klaus sobs and walks out into the rain. 

It’s cold but he’s colder.

“Why, Ben? Why can’t you just let me manifest you? Then they’d see. Then they’d know! I’m not… I’m not cut out for doing this alone.”

Ben’s face is red. With anger or sadness he doesn’t know. He holds a hand over his stomach.

“You know why. I don’t want them to believe me because of me, I want them to believe me because of you.”

Klaus rests his hand over Ben’s stomach.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I love you, too.”

______________________

Klaus is high. Then he’s sober.

 _Oops,_ high again. 

He stumbles and fucks and drinks and cries his way into a two week bender.

By the end he is so fucking tired.

Get high. Hate himself. Get sober. Hate himself more.

He’s done with this.

Rinse. Cycle. Repeat.

_______________________

Ghosts surround him. 

Trap him from the living. A little boy left all alone. With dangerous company.

_Klaus. Klaus. Klaus. **Klaus. Klaus. KlausKlausKlausKLAUSKLAUS. HELP US, OH GOD, PLEASE HELP. PLEASE, PLEASE. IT’S SO DARK AND COLD. WON’T YOU HELP? WHY AREN’T YOU HELPING?**_

Mr. Jackson was an alcoholic. He died. And oh, God did he want a drink. And oh, little Klaus. You’re father’s liquor cabinet is right there. Don’t you want a drink? You want a drink. Drink. Drink!

And Mr. Harris was a pedophile and oh did he love to watch Klaus change. And he loved to watch him take a bath and whisper in his ear. And, no Klaus, don’t ask your father what a pedophile is. It’ll do no good.

Fortunately, this little revelation revealed no protection for Klaus, but a gleam of interest in his eye and further interest into the cult from the 60’s that died near here… What a thing they had for little brown haired boys. To initiate them they had to perform the most godly and intimate acts of God.

And little Susie who choked and whimpered as water filled her lungs and poured from her mouth to the floor. Do you want to play, Klaus? Down by the river. It used to be so fun to play here…

Ms. Rachel, who hung from the ceiling. Her eyes popping and face reddening. Over and over. Stuck swinging.

Yes, this was dangerous company for a boy who knew too much and still not enough.

_________________

Klaus stands high above the city. Standing on the ledge. When he looks down he sees so many little people.

The wind blows hard, if he falls, he could catch himself. _Maybe._

He wonders what’s so special about him. 

The truth is that Klaus is a dead boy walking. 

He’s carrion.

Dead meat. 

Klaus steps forward, off the building, and _down he falls._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys. this one is kind of wild. we are growing and declining and growing and them breaking all over. don't worry this is klaus and recovery is not linear. tell me what you thought! the next chapter is the last before we reach the show plotline (at least i hope)... so get excited. anyways its rough for the hargreeves and i don't hate any of them (not even luther) so just know they are all fucked up and i love them all. 
> 
> what did u guys think about klaus' powers? he is getting his telekinesis and levitation from the comics because screw the show. what did u guys think of the eel. mr satan.
> 
> PLEASE COMMENT IT MAKES MY DAY any ideas or criticism or thoughts i want them
> 
> \- xoxo winnie
> 
> ps this story is named after carrion by miss fiona apple so give that a listen if u want


	3. creature comforts

Klaus falls. Down, down, down.

As always, he crawls his way up.

Bloody and smiling.

_____________________

Sometimes, Klaus looks down at his little life. His most positive real life relation is with his brother, and that crumbled apart faster than you can say _‘I lived in a horrible, emotionally unstable pseudo-cult for my formative years and now don’t understand how to maintain real, meaningful connections without tearing them all apart’._

All his other relationships are with the dead. Or with his clients. (Be that prostitution or the occasion missing persons case. Bodies are bodies.)

He looks down and he thinks about his order from that eel bastard. The Devil.

To learn. 

He sits in his candle lit hotel room and holds his hand palms up. He focuses all his attention on Maddie and her mother.

The little girl from so long ago. His last mission.

Her little hand holds on tight to his goodbye hand, her mother daintily holds the other.

“Goodbye, for now.” Klaus says. He lets the force of his words travel through his body, in a wave of blue light. His eyes shut as he feels the weight of them, of their souls begin to drift away. But not before one last message gets through.

“Take care of yourself, cariño.”

Klaus sighs, and wipes a tear from his eye. When he opens them, the candles had all blown out.

Take care of yourself…

Looks like he’s got something new to learn.

Take that and _shove it_ God, Satan, and assorted otherworldly beings!

_____________________

Klaus is in a store. A makeup store.

He had solved some ancient cold-case (anonymously. He can’t go back to the station. He doesn’t want to talk to Eudora. Doesn’t want to look at her.)

He runs his hands over eyeshadow palettes, lipsticks, blushes. The saleswomen comes over to him, asks if he needs help in a soft voice.

She sits him down in a chair. Paints his lips black. Adds glitter and eyeliner to his eyes.

Klaus sniffles and tries not to cry. The woman smiles encouragingly at him.

Klaus has nightmares. Klaus lives in a nightmare. It’s not always ghosts. Sometimes, it’s the feeling of Reginald’s cane on his face. The look of malice in his eyes when he pushed him down the stairs for wearing Mom’s heels, getting caught wearing Vanya’s skirt, doing his makeup with Allison. Klaus has always been _too much_ and _not enough._ Nothing Klaus had done had even been acceptable. Sometimes, it’s the words he was called after he was singled out after a mission, while everyone else looked away.

_Useless. Slow. Disappointment. Weird. Unnatural. Freak. Evil boy, evil child._

So, Klaus pays for makeup his father would hate, in a dress he wouldn’t approve of, with money he made using his own _useless_ powers.

It feels like winning. It feels like a victory.

Klaus is a fallen angel.

And up, up, up he rises.

________________________

He sneaks down the hallway. It’s late, and he shouldn’t be up. He doesn’t care.

Number Four, despite what others think, is great at being quiet. No one expects it, that’s what makes him so sneaky. He slips down the stairs, light as a feather. Peaking into the kitchen, he checks to see that it’s empty before taking the donut, a chocolate eclair, out of the bread box.

He creeps back upstairs quickly, before approaching Number Seven’s room. He knocks three times.

“Hello?” asks Four as he pushes up the door, “Seven?”

A head peeks out from under the sheets, and big eyes blink at him, “Four? What are you doing?”

“Shh,” he darts in the room, and closes the door behind him and sits on the bed,

“Look! I got you an eclair! We went to Griddy’s after the mission, and I thought you might like one, too?” Four says, nervously.

He and Seven hang out sometimes, she’s closer with Five, but Four is her second favorite. That’s okay, Seven is Four’s second favorite, too. First is always Six. 

Seven smiles big and bright at him, “Thank you. I didn’t think you would’ve remembered me.”

“Don’t be silly. How could I forget?”

Klaus chokes on tears, and shakes his head like that'll push the memory away. He used to be kind. The mausoleum fucked that up. He barely ever saw Vanya after that. He wondered if she thought he abandoned her. With his luck, she probably did.

He rolls over, blocks out the scream of the dead, and tries to sleep.

________________________

Klaus sits on a cold park bench. He passes a bottle between him and Ben.

Ben doesn’t drink.

That’s okay. He drinks enough for the both of them.

The air is cold, but it surrounds him and his heart beats fast. He can feel the rush of blood to his heart.

It aches.

He breathes in and the air sits at the bottom of his lungs, he chokes on it. He takes a swig from the bottle and burns all the way down.

There’s a loose thread on his sweater. He hadn’t noticed before. There are crescent moon scars all along the palms of his hands. He hadn’t noticed those either. His mascara is clumpy and wet, and when he reaches shaking hands to touch his cheek. They come back wet and black.

He lets out a shaky sigh, “I killed you, Ben. I did didn’t I? You’re dead because of me. Now, you’re stuck here. I’m… I killed you?”

The weight of it settles on his shoulders.

He feels like Atlas. Trapped under the weight of the world.

The weight of dead and death.

Ben takes the bottle from his sweaty hands, and swallows hard. 

“You didn’t kill me, Klaus. I was always going to die. **They** were always going to tear me apart, eventually. I can’t escape it in life. I can’t escape it in death either.”

The weight slides off his shoulders. He clutches at Ben’s hand and he holds on tighter.

“Bad omens, the two of us.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

Klaus smiles. 

It’s a hollow one but it’s more real than anything he’s felt in a long, long time.

______________________

Klaus is older than he ever thought he would be. He is 26 years old and he always thought he was all alone in the world.

Klaus is never alone. Whether that’s a curse or a gift is yet to be determined.

_______________________

Klaus is light on his feet. He hovers and floats and skips. He’s hands glow blue as his feet skim the ground.

It’s easier to do on bare feet. But he _so_ loves platforms and heels. 

Maybe he was always meant to be high above the ground.

One day Ben shakes him awake, he opens his eyes to a blue room. And two feet of air below him. 

He crashed down to the bed with a start. 

Ben shakes his head in wonder.

If only Reggie knew.

________________________

Klaus stands in a dark room in front of a dark door.

The void calls to him.

He had one foot in. 

But still… he hesitates.

_____________________

Five was the first to leave.

Little Number Five. He thought he was so grown. But he was small.

For all he knows, he is still small.

Klaus doesn’t know where Five is. 

He knows where he isn’t.

He never stops looking.

Ben was second to leave. And Klaus third.

“Number Four, if you cannot make yourself useful then _leave._ Number Six is dead, and if you cannot sober up enough long enough to conjure him, then you have no place in the Academy. Your deviant ways are a stain on the reputation of the Academy.” 

Reginald, his father, had told him to book it. Well, screw him. He went to the funeral anyway, and he was high off his ass.

Klaus wondered how everyone else left.

He has no doubt that he was the only one who was kicked out.

Apparently Luther never left. He never left and he was all alone in that cold, dark house.

Now he’s all alone on the cold, dark moon.

Klaus sighs, and heads to the nearest payphone.

Calls Diego. Straight to voicemail.

He’ll leave a message.

He hesitates and calls Vanya, too.

________________________

“Hey Seven, look you don’t have to answer this, and honestly I don’t want you to. But, you're my sister and I already don’t talk to Allison or Luther. I can’t lose you, too…

I’m angry and I hate you, but know I love you, too. 

Hey, don’t forget me, alright?”

_________________________

Klaus buys an apartment.

He’s 26 and he realises that he’s been homeless for 10 years and he's been by himself for 10 years. With nothing.

He has never had a home.

The apartment is small.

A studio. No bedroom, one bathroom, and a tiny kitchen.

He paid for it with cash. The landlady grimaced but took it.

Half of it wasn’t even his, not that anyone but himself or Ben knew that.

Sitting on the wood floor in an empty apartment, Klaus wonders if this is taking care of himself.

He’s trying.

___________________

Klaus goes to flea markets, yardsales, junk weeks.

He stocks up on the weirdest, kitschiest knick-knacks he can find.

Ben whines and complains. He actually gags when he discovers the cat clock wall.

But he smiles softly when he thinks Klaus isn’t watching, and he knows he is relieved. 

Klaus buys hundreds of candles and a kotatsu (pink and sparkly, of course).

He has an idea.

He passes out flyers. “WONDER CHILD TURNED CRACK-ADDICT TURNED ROOKIE SEANCE- NUMBER FOUR, KLAUS HARGREEVES, AT YOUR SERVICE !! “

To his surprise (and Ben’s laughter) no one shows up.

He’s also not sure you’re allowed to run businesses out of his apartment. But whatever.

Three weeks later, he hears a knock at his door.

A middle-aged woman. Wearing an intimidating power suit and looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. She sighs when she sees him.

“Look, I have filed a missing person case. The police left me hanging for two fucking years. I know that… I know he’s dead. But I need to _know._ I- you are my last choice. You are one of the Umbrella Weirdos, yes?”

He smiles. “Yes, ma’am, Umbrella Weirdo Number Four.”

She brushes past him into his apartment. She looks around with distaste.

“I have some of his things, if you need them?”

Klaus thinks. _Maybe. Never done this before. Not that I know how this works._

Klaus says, “Oh, yes. Thank you. Sit at the table there, please.”

She kneels on the cushion before the kotatsu, while Klaus turns out the lights and lights several candles.

Klaus joins her on the other side of the kotatsu, “Now, tell me about him.”

“He was my baby. Henry. He was eight, now he would be ten. Brown curly hair, big brown eyes. Here. These were his. This is him.” She pulls a stuffed rabbit and some crayons out of her purse. A drawing of the two of them. A picture of the boy. He was so little.

Klaus reached across the table and pulled out the rabbit. 

Closing his eyes, with his goodbye hand clenching the stuffed animal, Klaus whispers out to the void…

_hello? Hello? HELLO?_

The never ending wave of blue surrounded him. _HELLO?_

Klaus screams.

_**HELLO?** _

Finally, a thin blue line uncoils from the center of him… connecting with a distance voice.

_Where am I?_

Klaus opens his eyes and he looks at the woman in front of him.

“I found him. Would you like to see?”

She nods, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“I’m Melissa. Take me to my boy.”

Klaus stands up and walks out of his apartment, Melissa trails behind. Behind her trails Ben.

He turns around, “Hey, you have a car, right?”

______________________

Klaus follows the blue trail, leading him to Henry.

They drive for around thirty-minutes, until they reach a stream. Klaus eyes the scene sadly.

He hates this.

The blue thread connects to Henry, who struggles as he sinks under the water. His arms and legs tied together. Desperately trying to reach the surface, thrashing and choking as he sinks slowly under the water. 

Again and again, the cycle repeats.

Sometimes ghosts do this. Left unseen and unnoticed, trapped repeating their death. Waiting for someone who will never come. 

All they have is Klaus.

He walks slowly towards Henry, and looks back at Melissa. 

“I don’t know that you’ll want to see this,” he says. Mellissa looks up sharply.

“I don’t care.”

Klaus tightens his goodbye hand and _pulls._

Melissa sobs. “Oh. Oh my god. Henry. Please, please, please,” she stumbles forward into the water and tries to tighten her arms around him, but her hands only sink through.

“You can’t touch him. He’s stuck. I can try to reach him, but I might not be able to. Then he can rest. And you can too.”

Melissa nods.

Klaus travels to the dark room and steps to the door. HELLO?

He sends the invitation and tightens his hands around the thread connecting him to Henry and tugs.

He reaches into the void and grasps onto the boy, pulling him back into his arms and to Melissa.

Blinking his eyes, Klaus looked down and realized he was floating a good foot above the air.

He settles on his feet and pulls Melissa out of the stream. Henry had his arms wound around Klaus’ neck and he had to pry his out of arms.

“Hey, Henry. It’s your mama, would you like to talk to her before you go?”

Henry nodded. With a flick of his fingers he banished the sad projection of Henry’s final moments. Klaus nodded at them before he went back to the car.

Ben sat in silence with him.

After a while Melissa trudged back in the car. Her chest heaved with the force of her sobs. 

“I’m done. He’s ready.”

Klaus looked back at the little boy, who waved.

Klaus waved back and he disappeared in a sad glow of blue light.

Sometimes, he really hates his powers.

___________________

After Melissa, business boomed.

He did summonings, banishings, solved murders, answered questions, and also told the future.

(Not that he knew how, but people hear ‘talks to the dead’ and assume he was gifted with not only harrowing visions of the dead but prophetic dreams of the future.)

He had managed pretty well for himself, if he does say so himself. Which he does.

He appreciates the money, too.

He bought a waffle-maker for Ben and himself. He invited Diego over.

They had a tense breakfast.

Better than nothing. 

He is starting to realize that while, yes, human connection is part of his job, he still feels lonely.

Manipulation is easy. He was taught that from the day he was born. What he doesn’t understand is the tricky emotions.

Love. Has he loved before? He loves Ben…

He had loved his family. Now? He’s not sure.

He’s not sure about anything, lately.

He’s got to get himself a boyfriend.

__________________

He gets himself a boyfriend.

He gets himself many boyfriends, actually.

The longest lasts three weeks.

Good lord… when the Devil asks him what he wants he’s going to ask for a steady, loving relationship.

_____________________

Klaus is up to his knees in trash and dumpster juice, sorting through bad junk and better junk. Ben sits up on the side of the dumpster, clean as can be, and waves cheekily. 

Klaus flips him off. He created a monster. 

He reaches for a cardboard box, and peers inside. A claw reaches out and swipes him right across the cheek.

He shrieks and falls backwards, flopping on top of some nice sludge. He crawls forward and peers into the box.

A tabby cat. 

“This cat is so evil, reminds me of my dearly departed brother, oh how I miss my dear Bennifer. Sometimes, I still hear his voice…” drawls Klaus.

“Kill yourself.”

“Low blow!” Klaus smiles and coos down at the cat. It hisses. 

“Well, looks like we have a new member of the family, Benny Boo!” Klaus rises to his feet and grabs the cardboard box and his unfortunate cargo, and floats up and over the dumpster.

Ben screams in frustration, but follows dutifully. His little duckling.

“Sorry about that. I am slowly going insane. If I could kill myself a second time I would,” says Ben.

Klaus giggles and together they march their way home.

Upon reaching the monstrosity they call a home, Klaus sets the box down gently and steps away. After several minutes, a grumpy little face peered out from under the cardboard flap. She jumped out of the box and sniffed around the apartment.

It apparently met her standards, and she hopped onto the couch next to Klaus. Klaus looks down at her, and he falls in love instantly.

“Ben, do you know what this means?”

“What.”

“We’re parents!”

“Fuck.”

___________________

“What are we gonna call her?” Asks Ben, who clumsily strokes her hair. He was not used to touching animals. He’s not used to much, really.

“Heroine. After my drug of choice.” 

“No. We can name her after my drug of choice: literature.”

“I literally and actually refuse to name my baby Literature.”

Ben smirked, “Come on, Klaus. We can call her Litter for short.”

Klaus smiled and reached down to scratch Litter on the head. 

“You like that, huh, Litter? You little vermin, of course you do.”

She purred and snuggled closer to Ben.

_This family of his is a disaster._

________________

Humming to his music, Klaus did his best to reenact that scene from _Matilda_ where Matilda danced around and made cards fly and lights twinkle.

He swayed his hips and his tarot cards swirled in the air, he stomped his feet and blankets folded, a flick of his hands and he floated in the air and spun around. Ben’s books sorted themselves onto the new bookshelf and their new plates and silverware (no more paper and plastic) flew into assorted drawers and cabinets. 

He’s glad not all of him is a curse.

Klaus spins around in a circle. His new skirt twirls around him, elegantly.

Ben lies on the couch. Klaus pokes him two, three times in the middle of his stomach.

He giggles as Ben squeaks, “Jesus Christ, Klaus! Do you want to die?”

Klaus stills. _Does he want to die?_

Yes. No. Maybe so. 

He smiles and holds out his hand. Ben takes it.

And together they dance the night away.

It’s enough.

______________________

Some man corners Klaus against the wall. He sees Klaus and he sees something he thinks he can consume.

Klaus growls at him, and whips his gun out from the holster at the small of his back. Points it right between his eyes. 

He doesn’t kill him. He doesn’t feel like it’ll be worth it. 

He does point the gun at his crotch and whisper, _if you so much as think of touching another person with your sick hands I will find you and I will kill you. And you don’t want to know what I can do with the dead._

Klaus can get better. Is getting better.

Right?

____________________

Not all of his life is good. Not all of Klaus is good.

He cries out in his sleep. Degrades himself.

He hooks up with men that are bigger than him and stronger than him because he wants it to hurt because _Klaus doesn’t deserve nice things._

He won’t go out and look for nice things only for the universe to take them away.

Klaus stares straight ahead, as a man mouths at his neck, at his collar bone.

The guy, Michael or Chris or whatever, holds him so tight it bruises. 

It hurts, and Klaus stumbles away feeling like dirt.

_Undesirable._

He thinks back to his first time that he can’t remember because he doesn’t _want_ to remember because he was so young and it never got better. It hurt then and it hurts now.

Klaus is dangerous. He has fought tooth and nail before. He had hurt before. He has killed, and lied, and stole, and manipulated, and screamed, and sunk his claws in like a wild animal. He has been angry and ugly and evil. 

And he was born evil wasn’t he?

His mother stands before him and he shakes when she looks at him like he's the worst the world has to offer.

_“Böse.”_

It’s all she says. Her hands claw at his arm, leaving bloody streaks. His or hers it doesn’t matter.

Where is he? Who is he?

Little Number Four. A weird child.

An uncanny child.

His nanny had tried to drown him in the bathtub.

He had yowled and screamed but she didn’t stop and he died in her arms as she pushed this evil thing, this changeling boy deep underwater so he couldn’t breathe.

If he hadn't come back where would he be?

Maybe this was all meant to be. 

Klaus Hargreeves. Never dead and always dying.

Ghosts scream and jeer and yell. The same thing. _Klaus, Klaus, Klaus, **Klaus, Klaus, Klaus**_.

He thinks back to that fateful night at the Mausoleum. Opening the door.

The snap of his neck. The Man’s hands on his thighs. 

He cries out and pleads and can’t anyone hear him? He can’t be alone? Because he is never alone and that's the problem because no one understood. No one understands.

He screamed too loud so Reginald just made his bedroom walls soundproof and isn’t that funny? Isn’t that just typical. 

He screams and screams and maybe one day it’ll be louder. Loud enough that the world knows what it’s like.

It’s red, red, red, red, red.

He sobs and shakes, and then a hand presses down on his head. Why?

The hands strokes his hair and where is he? He can’t see and he’s cold. He’s always cold.

But then a warm body pulls him close, and something slithers out of a door that he should know and whispers, _we want to take care of you._

Klaus opens his eyes and it’s Ben.

It’s Ben. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. 

A tentacle brushes tears off his cheek and a hand clutches his and Klaus breaks open.

Ben just holds him closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! i can't thank you enough for the comments, which really mean the world to me! i hope you like this chapter! next chapter will be set during the episodes so get excited! i am having lots of fun with this story and with this klaus and he deserves to be happy, even if its not for long. 
> 
> thanks for sticking around! tell me what y'all think!
> 
> -xoxo winnie


	4. the beginning of the end

Klaus glues himself together. Piece by piece.

He is stronger than he used to be.

He is not a little boy. He is a grown man and he has a family and a home, and he wasn't used to.

He didn’t use to be the person he is now, and that's okay.

Ben says he was worth something before and he is worth something now.

Ben handed him a page out of one of his pretentious poetry books and Klaus keeps it folded in his purse. 

_“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”_

Klaus does not have to be good. Klaus was not, is not, and will not always be good.

That’s okay.

__________________________

Klaus buys two phones and writes his number on four slips of paper and slips them under three different doorknobs.

Deigo. Eudora. Vanya.

For the fourth one, he puts on red lipstick and kisses the note. He writes in a loopy scrawl, _‘please, only call when you’re alone. xoxo, your number four.’_

He stands in front of a great mansion. In this mansion lived one person, a monkey, and a monster.

He knocks four times and steps back. He can hear the tip-tap of heels and nearly screams in relief.

His Mom opens the door, in her pink poodle skirt wearing her slightly manic smile. It softens when she sees him. 

“Oh, Klaus. You are back so soon! It’s been exactly 4,521 days since I’ve seen you last. Thank you for visiting! You look quite thin, bumblebee, would you like some dinner?” She says, and something in her eyes pleads at him.

_I wasn’t planning on staying, but thanks for the warning._

Klaus smiles, “No, thank you, Mom. I won’t be staying,” He leans forward to wrap her in a hug and it feels so familiar it aches. Her thin arms hold him like a vice, and he slips the phone and note into her pocket. She pulls apart from him, and Klaus winks at her, before turning around and walking back home. 

He feels her eyes follow him down the block.

____________________

Vanya calls him several days later. 

“... hi Klaus.”

“Hey, V.”

“I got your message.”

“Good.”

“Did you mean it?”

“I did. I do.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s- that’s good.”

“Yeah… “

“Hey, I did something. Or I will do something. I thought I should let you know… I wrote a book.”

 _What?_ “What?”

“Um, yeah. An autobiography.”

“Oh. Oh shit. Vanya. Really? About everything?”

“Yes. I couldn’t let it just sit inside me. I couldn’t let people not know.”

“Damn. Wish I had thought about that.”

Vanya huffs out a dry laugh. “I’m telling you because you should know. It’s not kind. It’s not a kind book. I’m… I’m not living a kind life.”

“Thank you for telling me. I love you.”

He hangs up before he can hear her response. Or lack of one.

She’s not ready for that.

Or maybe he isn’t.

He’s always live a one-sided life, after all.

___________________

One week later, a signed copy of _Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven_ is dropped off at his door.

He shakes so hard that he can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying.

Ben reads the book out loud to him. She was not wrong.

This book was not kind. To him. To Ben. To herself.

He’s glad she told him. If she hadn’t…

Klaus doesn’t know what would’ve happened.

_________________________

Klaus giggles as Ben flicks yellow paint at his face. 

Litter meows from where she’s circling in and out of feet, before she settles on the counter, next to the paint can and assorted brushes. They were painting the kitchen a more cheerful color than Beige #768.

“Stop it. This is a matter of life or death. If the paint gets on anything we will have to explain it to that evil wrench. That landlady is seriously mentally disturbed.”

Ben sniffled and pretended to wipe a tear from his eye, “I never thought I’d see the day my big baby brother grew up. At the young age of 28!”

Klaus launched himself at Ben with a battle cry. They tumbled around on the floor before the whole world turned yellow and wet.

“What the fuck!” Ben and Klaus yelled as they looked up at Litter who had upturned the paint can on the two of them. She radiated smug asshole.

“I cannot believe _your_ daughter did this,” muttered Klaus, as he wiped paint off of his face.

Ben smirked and faded out of tangibility, allowing the paint to slip off him.

“I changed my mind. I _can_ believe your daughter did this.”

Klaus sighed from his spot on the floor and looked up to the heavens.

_Thank you._

___________________

He and Eudora went shopping. He hadn’t seen her in a while.

There was a glaring hole in their conversations. A Diego sized hole. That coincidentally Diego could have fit right into.

Eudora needed new jeans. She wanted skinny jeans, but Klaus insisted on mom jeans or _at the very least_ boyfriend jeans.

“Look. Please. Live out the sexy half of the 90’s buddy-cop fantasy of my dream!”

Eudora smiled as she trailed behind while he threw in various items into their cart. 

He waited outside of the changing stall, and when she came out he gasped.

She did a little twirl in the blue sundress he had known would match her complexion perfectly. Klaus sighed wistfully. _If only Diego were here. He’d be creaming his pants._

Klaus did a little dance, to cover up the thought. “You look great! Now, pick something out for me!”

She sighed but nodded. Shopping with Klaus was difficult. Shopping for Klaus was like giving birth to sextuplets levels of difficult. 

Klaus jumped into the stall and vibrated in excitement. It’s always nice to see what others think of when they think of you. Like when you take a personality quiz thinking that you’ll get chocolate ice cream as your soul ice cream flavor, but you get strawberry instead. And maybe that makes sense. 

Eudora sticks a shirt through alongside a skirt. Klaus slips them on and stares at his reflection. The black miniskirt is short and shows off his long legs. The top is silver, sparkly, and mesh and ties in the front. He looks hot as hell.

He steps out and does a little spin. Eudora claps as Klaus curtsies. They pay for their things and head out to get some coffee.

It’s a good day.

___________________

Klaus gets a call from Mom about two months after he gave her the phone.

“Hello dear.” Says his Mom. Her voice has the special quality that it gets when she’s doing something because she _wants_ to, not because it was programmed into her.

“Hey, Mom. How are you?’

“Oh, Bumblebee. I’m doing just fine. The tulips are in bloom. This sure is a nice spring! How are you, Klaus?”

“I’m good. I’m doing good. How are you, _really?”_

“I’m just... fine!” She says. She hesitated just a split second before the fine. Normal in anyone else. Mom is not anyone else. Klaus looks over at Ben and he frowns at him. He mimes picking up the phone. 

“That’s good, Mom. Listen, I’m going to ask you something.”

“Okay, honey.”

“Do you- would you like to talk to Ben?”

He hears her fans whir, over the line. Processing the information. 

“Number Six is dead?” She questions, sounding confused.

“Yes. Number Six is dead, and he would love to talk to you.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed brightly, “Yes, I would like that very much.”

Klaus hands the phone over to Ben, who holds it gently and stares down at it for a few seconds before he shakily lifts it to his ear. 

“Hello, Mom,” he whispered softly. Klaus could barely hear her reply through the tinny speaker.

“Oh, Ben. It’s been so long. I have missed you, dear.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Klaus slipped off the couch and left the room, walking towards the kitchen. He’d leave them be. 

He puts some milk on the stove. This was a hot-chocolate occasion. He watched as it heated up, and looked up when Ben walked in the kitchen.

He smiled, though his eyes were red, and cheeks were puffy.

“Klaus, do you think we could keep her to ourselves, just for now? I know we should give her number to Diego, but. But you know how he is. Just for now?”

Klaus smiles at him, “I think that would be fine, Benny.”

____________________

She tells them to call her every Wednesday. 10 o’clock. They call her next Wednesday. And it’s good. 

They’ll tell Diego next Wednesday. Maybe have dinner at his place.

He doesn’t know then, that there will be no next time.

______________________

Klaus is eating some lucky charms. He turns on the tv to drown out some ghosts who are really hedging on his vibes. He listens absentmindedly as he drifts across the floor. His hands glow dimly, and he sways in the air.

_ECCENTRIC BILLIONAIRE, SIR REGINALD HARGREEVES, IS DEAD._

His cereal drops to the floor. Shatters.

Dead. His father… is dead? A ghost. Klaus realizes faintly that he was on the ground. His head hurts.

He touches it. Red.

Red, red, red, red, red…

He gasps, chokes.

What? He doesn’t… he doesn’t…

Ben? Where… 

He doesn’t get it. 

He locks eyes with someone above him. They look worried… 

He closes his eyes and opens them to black and white.

He retches on the soft grey grass in front of him.

Screams. Screaming.

Who is that?

“It’s you, Klaus. Shh. Be quiet.”

He looks up. God.

He tries to speak but he can’t. He closes his eyes and presses his fists into them.

Make it go away. Make it stop. Make it go away.

God reaches over. Stiffly pats his shoulder. 

“Go back. The beginning of the end is here.”

_What?_

_________________________

Ben holds him as Klaus shivers and shakes and sobs and oh god.

Should he be happy? He should. He’s dead.

Good news to the whole world.

Minus Klaus.

As always.

“Please, Ben. I can’t do this. Can’t see him. Please, please, please.”

A tentacle wraps around his waist. Lifts him closer to Ben.

They drift off.

_____________________

When Klaus wakes, he finds himself engulfed. By tentacles and fur and Ben’s snoring face.

He lifts Litter off of him and unwraps himself from The Horrors. 

He gets out a bag. He has a funeral to attend. 

He wonders what he should wear….

Something Reggie would hate. He had a bad feeling he would be seeing him sometimes soon. 

He looks through his closet. And spots it in the back. A black veil, and a _scandalous_ little black dress. He pulls out the thigh holster and his gun and slips it up his leg. He’s feeling very Mrs. Smith. He finds a pair of white gogo-boots that go with it and throws the outfit on. Applies his black lipstick and does his eyeliner and shadow. Smokey eye, of course. 

He grabs a pink feather boa and the dead girl’s fur coat for good measure. 

He leans against the doorway to their bedroom and does his best smolder.

“Oh, Benny!”

Ben wakes with a start and the tentacles slip back inside his stomach. He blinks at Klaus before laughing so hard he rolls right off the bed.

“Oh my God. Let’s get this party started.”

____________________________

Klaus looks up at the Academy. It towers over him as usual.

He grips Ben’s hand tightly and closes his eyes. He feels shaky. Weak. Something curls low in his stomach. He looks over at Ben and he winks as his hand slips out of his, and he loses his tangibility.

He slinks through the door and into the house. For the first time in 13 years.

He looks around the foyer. High ceilings. He feels small. 

He looks around for Mom. She’s sitting there. Hair perfect, and smile strained. He calls her name but she ignores him.

Ben looks at him with concern. _Something is not right._

Klaus sighs, and trails through the mansion. He wanders into Sir Reggie’s office. The portrait of him swallows up the whole room. Klaus sighs before sitting in his chair. Kicking his heels up on the table.

“Ha, if only he could see me now. Cocky bastard…” Klaus sighed at the words. _There is literally nothing else he wants less than to see him._

“Ben? Why do I get the feeling I’m going to have to do a summoning sometime soon in the near future.”

“Maybe you're actually psychic as well?” Ben joked, he was looking through stuff on the desk. “You know, Klaus, I don’t want you to do that. You shouldn’t. You really scared me last night…”

Klaus flinched. “We deserve answers. I deserve answers. I need to know… “

Klaus slipped a blunt out of his boot and lit it. Inhaling deeply he blew little circles up at Reggie’s portrait. They dispersed against his face.

“Oh, he would _hate_ that,” said Allison, leaning against the doorway. Klaus looked at her.

Allison was beautiful as usual. Tall. She looked good but sad. He had seen pictures of her on the news and in magazines. Divorce. Klaus was an uncle. He had never met Claire. He was never invited to the wedding…

“Hey, Allie.”

She walked forward and perched on the edge of the desk, “Hi, Klaus.”

“You know, I was hoping to see you, actually, because I wanted to get your autograph. Add it to my collection!” He giggled and took a drag from the blunt. 

She smiled, “So, how’ve you been doing? You look good.” He could tell what she thought about how he had been doing. Whatever. She didn’t know him. Not anymore.

“I know! And well, I’ve been better.”

She sighed and pulled the blunt from between his fingers, and to his surprise, took a deep drag. She grimaced and coughed lightly, before handing it back.

Klaus laughed softly before tilting the chair back and blew another smoke ring at Reggie’s smug face. “I just came down here, to prove to myself that the old man is really gone. And he is! Yay! Remember who he used to look at us? That scowl!” He pointed up at the painting, before passing the blunt back to Allison. 

“Thank Christ he’s not our real father, so we couldn’t inherit those cold, dead eyes!” He smiled as Allison continued to smoke. She must be messed up, she never smoked unless she was really upset.

Klaus leaned back, before pulling open his eyes, “Ahh, Number Three!” Allison shook her head giggling. 

“Get out of his chair.” Demanded Luther, also appearing out of nowhere at the door. Allison started so badly, she dropped the blunt on the desk, setting several papers on paper. 

“What? Allison, what were you doing?” he stomped over, grabbing the papers and batting them out. 

She looked over at Luther and back at Klaus, who had stood up and was slowly edging towards the door. 

“Uh…” she said intelligently. Ben snorted as he watched the scene before him. 

“Wow, Luther! You really filled out over the years, huh?” He said, and Ben looked at Luther in awe. Allison reached over to grab the blunt, but Luther grabbed it first. 

“You two are unbelievable. In his office, really? He would’ve hated that.”

Ben, Allison, and Klaus responded in unison, “We know.”

Luther just looked confused now, poor baby. Klaus edged closer to the door, but Luther blocked the entrance, pushing him back. 

Ben growled from the corner. Klaus eyed him, “What’s your problem?”

“Drop it.”

“Ex-squeeze me?

“Do it. Now.”

“What makes you think I could possibly fit anything on me in this outfit?” Klaus said, gesturing down at his little dress and tiny fur coat. Luther blushed and looked away. What did he think, he shoved some cash into the secret pocket in his feather boa? That’s actually kind of a good idea…

“Klaus, do you expect me to believe you?”

Ben continued to growl from the corner. His little guard dog.

“Yes! Is that too much to ask?”

His answer shocked Luther into silence. Klaus looked at Allison. She was gaping at him. 

Klaus pushed past Luther’s arm and swayed his hips as he left the office. “Asshole.” 

He slammed the door shut behind him.

__________________

“Um... I guess we should get this started. So, I figured we could have a sort of memorial service in the courtyard at sundown. Say a few words, just at father’s favorite spot.”

Klaus raises his head to look at the ceiling. _Fuck you, God._

He looks over at Vanya and rolls his eyes. She smiles back. 

“Dad had a favorite spot?” Asks Allison, looking sad. 

“You know, under the oak tree…”

_No, Luther, we don’t know._

“Will there be refreshments? Tea? Scones? Cucumber sandwiches are always a winner..” He asks, trying to lighten the mood. Ben scoffs from the corner, so he’s not doing a good job. He continues to smoke his blunt. Thank God for weed.

“What? No. And put that out. Dad didn’t allow smoking here.” Luther grumbles, the big oaf.

“That’s blatant homophobia. You said nothing when Allison and I were smoking earlier!”

Luther paled, “I’m not- I would never. I’m not homophobic. And I should’ve said something because you set dad’s office on fire within two minutes of being here! And wait… Does that mean… Klaus are you gay?” Luther looked horrified.

Five other voices shouted, “What?” at the same time. 

Diego stammered, “Luther, did you really n-not know? I mean… Look at him!”

Allison and Vanya nodded in agreement. Luther looked Klaus up and down.

Klaus winked, “You can look but you can’t touch.”

Luther blushed and looked down, “I.. I never thought of that. Uh… Let’s, uh, get back on schedule here… There’s something suspicious going on. Like the way he died.”

“Here we go,” muttered Diego.

Vanya spoke up from next to him, “I don’t understand. I thought they said it was a heart attack.”

“Yeah, according to the coroner.”

“Well, wouldn’t they know?”

“Theoretically.”

Klaus snorted. This keeps getting better and better.

Allison giggled from her chair. _Hmm, looks like the weed’s kicking in._

Luther sighed, “Look, I’m just saying, at the very least, something happened. The last time that I talked to dad, he sounded strange.”

“Oh, quelle surprise!” Klaus said, and Allison chortled from across the room.

But secretly he thought about how weird Mom had been acting. The pauses. Her lack of response earlier.

“He sounded on edge. Told me I should be careful who to trust.”

_Oh Lord, do not be going where I think you’re going._

Klaus made eye contact with Luther. “Luther. Do not say what you’re about to say.”

Luther looked at him, shocked. “I… uhh.”

Klaus sighed and wrapped his coat around him tighter.

“He must have known something was going to happen. Look, Klaus, please.”

Klaus looked over at Ben. Who shrugged. _Your call._

Long lost little Susie gurgled from the corner. She was the only ghost here. Besides Ben, of course.

“Look, if I do summon him, which I won’t, I can’t do it right now.”

“And why is that?”

“What? Luther, you literally just saw Allison and I get high. Chill.”

Luther grumbled, but conceded. “Alright, then there’s the issue of the missing monocle.”

Diego whined while Luther ranted about yada yada. Stupid monocle. Something personal. Someone with a grudge.

_Wait, what? Where is he going with this. Oh, please do not-_

“He thinks one of us killed dad.”

Classic Hargreeves family reunion. 

Klaus yelled something about going to go kill mom before fucking off to the kitchen. 

God, this family.

______________________

“Are you really going to summon him?” Ben worriedly asked.

Klaus shrugged. “I might. I mean to get answers… and then I can banish him. Forever. He’ll be gone and I will never have to look at him or think about him again.”

Ben sighed. “I’m scared that it won’t be that easy.”

“Me too.”

They sat in pensive silence before hearing the opening notes of a familiar sound.

_I think we’re alone now…_

Hilarious. Klaus has never been alone in his entire life. 

Klaus stood up and swayed his hips, laughing softly, before reaching out a hand to Ben.

He took his hand and waves of blue shimmered out of Klaus as they floated softly.

Dancing a slow dance. 

Then suddenly, the air crackled and shimmered. Klaus dropped to the ground in a crouch as knives sailed over his head, and embedded themselves in the wall. He raced out the back door, followed by the rest of the fam before stopping at a _monstrous blue cloud thing._

Luther pushed him back but Klaus soldiered forward, peering into the sizzling blue thunderstorm. He fingered his gun in his thigh holster. There was a man on the other side.

“Klaus, what are you doing?”

“Figuring out who the hell that is!”

He pulled out his gun and ignored the gasps from the peanut gallery, pointing it at the man. Who _changed_ and got smaller and fell to the courtyard ground with a scream. He looked up at Klaus.

Oh.

He lowered the gun.

“Five? Are you… are you _real?”_

______________________

They sat in the kitchen. Peering at Five with disbelief as he busied himself with making a sandwich. 

“What's the date? The exact date.”

“The 24th.”

“Of?” Yep, still bossy and annoying.

“March.”

“Good.”

“So, are we gonna talk about what just happened?”

“Yes, actually. Klaus,” he turned and pointed at him, which was rude but whatever, “what was that? The gun? Asking if I’m real? Nice dress by the way.”

Klaus blinked as the attention turned to him. “Well for starters. I wanted to impress Reggie on his special day, danke. Second, I live a dangerous life, right Diego?”

Now, the heads turned to Diego, whose face turned green at the mention of his escapades.

“Klaus, I literally _never_ want to think about that again.”

“Alright, and thirdly, I wasn’t sure if you were real.”

Luther looked around, and settled on Diego, “What’s going on? What did Klaus do?”

Diego growled, “He went psycho on this dude. He bit his dick off. I had to see the body. Fucking disturbing.”

Klaus smiled sharply as everyone turned to look at him. His eyes focused on them all. They shifted nervously, even Five, who had forgotten what it was like to have Four look at him. To really look. His eyes, they were just so… _ancient._ He was always a creepy kid.

He supposed that turned him into a scary adult.

Klaus continued looking at Five, who eyed him with something like respect or pride. Klaus leaned forward to whisper in his ear, _“I knew. Ghosts don’t carry ghosts. I never stopped looking for you, Number Five.”_

Five nodded, and the attention turned back on him.

“It’s been… 17 years,” said Luther.

“It’s been a lot longer than that.”

Then Diego asked where he went. 

“The future. It’s shit by the way.”

“Called it!” Murmured Klaus.

“I should’ve listened to the old man… “

That… huh. Should’ve listened to the old man. He eyed Ben, and Ben looked back and nodded. _There’s something wrong here… this doesn’t make sense._

“How long were you there?”

“Forty-five years, give or take.”

Hmm, little Number Five is not so little. 

Klaus spaced out for the rest of the conversation.

Five being snide. Luther being stupid. Diego being angry.

Five’s right. Some things never change.

___________________

They walked outside. When it rains it pours.

He and Ben look at that damn statue with distaste. It really looks nothing like him. 

He stands next to Mom, who smiles down at him. 

“Oh, Klaus! I can’t wait for your call. It’s lovely to see you! Is Ben here?” She smiles her perfect smile. Everyone turns to look at her. Klaus looks at Ben, _fancy making the big entrance, now?_

Ben shakes his head.

“Hi, Mom. Yes, I will call you. Wednesday, remember? And Ben’s not here right now. You can see him later.” She smiles at him confusedly.

“Did something happen?”

They eye her worriedly.

“Dad died. Remember?” Says Allison.

Ben stares at Mom. Something is… something is amok.

Pogo walks up and gives Luther the go-ahead. 

Luther upends the ashes and they fall to the ground with a plop.

Klaus and Ben stifle giggles. Poorly, if the look Pogo gives him is any indication. _Suck on it, weird-ass monkey._

“Does anyone wish to speak?”

Crickets chirp.

“Very well. In all regards, Sir Reginald Hargreeves made me what I am today,”

_Yeah, and what’s that? A sad, old monkey that stuck in a house jerking off to the thought of their dad in his little monopoly man cosplay._

“... For that alone, I shall forever be in his debt. He was my master, and my friend and I shall miss him very much. He leaves behind a complicated legacy-”

“He was a monster,” says Diego.

Klaus doesn’t even try to hide his laugh this time. 

“He was a bad person and a worse father. The world is better off without him-”

“Diego,” warned Allison.

“My name is Number Two. You know why? Because our father couldn't be bothered to give us actual names. He had Mom do it.”

Mom perked up at the mention of her name, “Would anyone like something to eat?”

Vanya tried to soothe her.

Diego started his tirade again, “Look, you wanna pay your respects? Go ahead. But at least honest about the kind of man he was.”

“You should stop talking now,” growled Luther.

Klaus looked between the two of them. The two big boys don’t need umbrellas, apparently. Which is ironic, actually.

Luther and Diego continued to fight, while Five turned to look at Klaus and grimaced.

Luther swung at Diego but he ducked. His extra bulk allowed Diego to dodge him easily.

“Hit him! Hit him!” He squealed in joy.

He hoped Diego would win, he had the advantage. Luther seemed clumsy in his body.

Luther swung at Diego, who slipped out of the way. Luther’s fist punched Ben’s statue, which flew into the air before crashing to the ground, Ben’s wee head bouncing across the courtyard. 

Ben turned to look at him, wide-eyed. “Oh- oh my God!” He dissolved into giggles.

He walked over to the pile of ashes, before stubbing the butt of his cigarette in them.

Best. Funeral. Ever.

____________________

Klaus sat at the table, watching as Five ransacked the kitchen.

Allison walked in, “Where’s Vanya?”

“She’s somewhere. I convinced her to stay until tonight,” sighed Klaus.

Five looked over, “What for?”

Klaus looked over at him, staring, “I’m talking to him. Tonight. Be here. We all need to be here. We deserve answers.”

Five nodded. “I will. But first, I need coffee.”

Allison eyed him, “Dad hated coffee.”

Klaus smiled, “Well, he hated children and he had plenty of us!”

Five disappeared with a flash of blue.

Diego walked in, “All right, I guess I’ll see you guys in, what, ten years?”

Klaus sighed, “Actually, Diego, can you stay? Just for tonight?”

Diego looked at him, “You’re not actually going to do it, are you? Klaus, if Luther is making you do this…”

Klaus glared, “No one _makes_ me do anything. And I am doing it. I think it’s about time we had a little chat with him.”

Diego sighed. “Alright.”

Allison sighed, “I assume I have to stay now, too?”

Klaus smiled, “Course. Not a party without a robot, a monkey, a world-famous superstar, and our dead father.”

_____________________

Everyone was gathered in the ‘living room’. Where, coincidentally, no living really had ever taken place. 

Not much living ever occurred in this house.

Diego held onto Mom’s hand and Pogo hovered over Vanya’s side.

Vanya smiled reassuringly at him, and he winked back. 

He turned his attention on Five, staring pointedly at his arm, which he tried to cover, but was bloody. 

Five shook his head.

Alright then.

He slipped off his shoes and stepped onto the floor. He shuddered as he felt his connection with the earth solidify. He lit several candles and laid them out in a half moon in front of him, before walking over to turn off all the lights and lamps. 

The room was shrouded in darkness and glowing yellow light. 

“Alright. Are you guys ready?”

They all nodded, except Mom, who looked confused. 

He breathed in shakily, and Ben was at his side in an instant. The Horrors rumbled in his chest, _we can rip him to shreds in a heartbeat. we can make sure he never bothers you again. just say the word, little one._

He reached forward and laid his hands over Ben’s stomach. “I’m okay, duckies, no need to worry about me.” Ben nodded.

He looked over, his family was watching him talk to thin air.

He sat down on a cushion on the floor surrounded by the candles.

He closed his eyes and opened them. He was in a cold dark room in front of a cold dark door.

He pushed the door open wide. Wider than before.

He raised his hands and he pushed the blue waves out from him. Laying out a trap and waiting for the bite.

**_SIR REGINALD HARGREEVES… COME CLOSER._ **

No answer.

The blue flooded his senses and he felt a tug on the thread.

**_HELLO?_**

The tug pulled harshly at him. He ignored the wave of voices and screams that washed over him. 

He only wanted one. 

He reached into the door and wrapped his hands around something dark and slimy. 

Something vile. Something inhuman. 

_Got you._

He opened his eyes to a dark room flooded with blue light. The candles had gone out. 

He sat cross-legged in the air, his body shaking with something that felt _big and full and powerful._

And he plucked Sir Reginald Hargreeves out of the void and tossed him into the room. 

He stared down at him with disgust and hatred, as he ignored the gasps around him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! sorry that this one took a bit longer. five will definitely take longer as well because the end of the year is coming and online school is seriously sucking the life out of me. I really hope you like this and tell me how you feel about the changes to the storyline! thank u as always! cheers to the longest chapter yet!
> 
> and quick question, how do yall feel about dave? should I write him in or leave him out?
> 
> xoxo winnie


	5. daddy issues

Five watched as Klaus flitted about the room, lighting candles and turning out the various lamps and lights.

Suddenly he noticed his attention focused on Vanya, and then him. Klaus stared pointedly at his arm. Damn. It was going to be harder to fool them than he had thought. He shook his head. They would deal with this later.

Then Klaus breathed out a shaky sigh. He talked to someone he couldn’t see. Called them ‘Ducky’. He wondered if it was Ben. Maybe Klaus conjured him, sometimes. He hoped he would.

He would never forget the moment he had read that Ben was dead. In Vanya’s book. He had to mourn someone who had been dead for years, and alive seconds before.

He shook his head. Best not to get stuck in the past. 

Klaus finally settled on the floor, cross-legged, and palms face up.

“Alright, are you guys ready?”

They nodded. Klaus closed his eyes.

Instantly, the temperature dropped several degrees. Five shivered despite himself. 

His hands started to glow a shimmering blue, the color of a pool at night. Five looked around, wondering if this was normal Klaus behavior. The wide eyes and open mouths suggested it wasn’t.

The temperature continued to drop until he could see his breath. The blue glow continued to spread up his arms and around his body, and Klaus slowly levitated above his cushion.

Now, this was something. Vanya’s book never led him to the conclusion that Klaus was anything other than a useless junkie. Boy were they wrong. He could barely stifle his glee. Maybe the apocalypse could be stopped.

Klaus hovered above the ground. The cold air was all-encompassing. It felt strange… like something was watching them.

Five sucked in a frigid breath as Klaus opened his eyes. They were pools of blue. They were old and… evil.

Evil. Big. Everywhere. 

Screams and voices and choking and cursing and laughing filled the air, and something evil slithered. 

Klaus spoke softly… _got you._

His hands shone a brighter blue and wind whipped through the room as one by one, the candle’s were blown out. He looked down in surprise, as the coach shifted and shook. Lamps and tables and the carpet rose and lifted in the air.

And Klaus opened his eyes once more, but the light was gone, and the screaming dulled. The blue glow of his hands was the only light in the room. 

Five teleported away to quickly relight the candles, which bobbed in the air.

When he settled in his seat, he looked at Klaus. Who was looking in front of him with disgust and rage. 

Rage. Huh, didn’t know Klaus had it in him. Guess he needs to reevaluate his character in his calculations. 

Klaus snapped his fingers and the ghost of Sir Reginald Hargreeves appeared in front of them.

The ghost immediately sneered, “Number Four, control this at once!”

Klaus glared and the ground shook and rumbled, somewhere deep below, but slowly everything settled back to its rightful place. 

And then, the tide of questions was unleashed.

___________________

Klaus felt something ugly settle deep in his stomach. Hatred.

“Number Four, control this at once!” Sneered that evil voice he had hoped never to hear again. _God, the things I wish I could do to you, old man._

He looked around at his siblings' stricken faces and designed himself to set the furniture back on the ground. He shivered in the cold, but the arm slowly began to warm.

And then, the dam broke loose.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?”

“Dad?”

“Klaus? What was- what was that _noise?”_

“I wish I had gone home.”

“Would anyone like some cookies? Klaus, dear, you’re too thin.”

“Master Klaus…”

“Enough! Is this the state of the Umbrella Academy? I see with myself gone, you have tarnished the good name of-”

Klaus swiped his hands through the air. “Shut it. You can’t talk to me like that anymore!”

Reginald stepped back, “Number Four-”

“My name is Klaus.”

He huffed, but before he could continue, Five spoke up, “Klaus? What’s the plan here?”

Klaus tried to breathe in and out. _God, this sucked._

He sighed and floated down to the floor before gesturing at Reggie to sit down, and sitting down himself.

“Alright, here’s the rules. One person talks at a time. But I have a few questions before we get started.” Klaus reclined on his chair.

“Earlier this morning, before your funeral, which was lovely by the way, Five said something that concerned me,” Five leaned forward in his chair, eyeing Klaus and Reginald, “he said that he should’ve listened to you. How did you know? I was high at the dinner, but I remember the bullshit acorn thing. Now, _how did you know?”_

With that, the room swayed and the candles flickered.

Reginald stomped his cane hard on the ground, and the room returned to normal, “Number Four, if you cannot control your powers it is straight to the mausoleum. You must get over this useless fear!” He stalked forward to Klaus, who stepped cautiously backward.

No. The mausoleum. He is never going back there.

Right? He wouldn’t. Dad’s dead.

He can’t do anything. Not anymore.

Klaus is in control. 

Klaus is special. Klaus is alive and he’s dead.

His father took up so much space in front of him. Realistically, Klaus knows that he’s taller than him. 

But… he feels so small. 

Reginald raised his cane high in the air before swinging it down in a high arc towards Klaus’ face. 

Just like before.

Klaus watched. Frozen. As it happened in slow motion.

He didn’t flinch. That had been trained out of him long ago. He closes his eyes instead.

Klaus waits for a hit that doesn’t come.

He blinks up at the cane, suspended in midair by a glowing blue tentacle.

Ben stands in front of his tentacles wrapped around Reginald, squeezing hard.

“I think you forgot who you were talking to, old man. Me and Klaus are a package deal, nowadays. Now, _answer the fucking question.”_

Ben squeezed harder, and Reginald choked and sputtered.

“I can’t tell you. You’re not supposed to be aware yet. Pogo can explain some. You children were always my _d-downfall.”_ He choked on air Ben was not willing to give.

He reached one shaking hand and pointed at Klaus. “Your mother. I should’ve known from the beginning. An omen. Bad omens.”

Klaus smiled wide, “I think I am done with questions for the day, pops. Buh-bye!”

And he stepped forward as Ben released Reginald, who collapsed on the ground. He crouched down next to him, just in time to hear him whisper something snide about his outfit. 

Klaus brushed his white hair off his sweaty forehead.

“I have some friends on the other side, they’ll take real nice care of ya!”

And with a flick of his hand, he disappeared. Klaus sat down hard on the ground, shaking.

Ben rested a hand on his shoulder, which he grabbed tightly before resting his head in his hands.

“Sorry, guys. I promised you answers… I can- I can try again?”

“What?” Asked Vanya and Five, at the same time.

“Um… I didn’t send him down for forever. I can always bring him back… If you want. It’s not a big deal?”

Klaus looked around the room, Ben, who had destroyed the coffee table and several chairs and still had a tentacle wrapped around his waist. Lampshades and couches all in a disarray. His family, sitting stiffly, on the two couches. Even Five looked perturbed. 

Vanya leaned forward, looking at Ben, and _oh, she’s looking at Ben. They are all looking at Ben? They can see you, Ben. Just like you always wanted. I don’t know why…_

He startled as Vanya placed a hand on his knees, Ben growled at her, and she flinched backward. “Um. Klaus, we don’t care. That was awful. You don’t- we will never make you do that again.”

She looked with wide eyes, which were slowly filling with tears.

Klaus leaned forward and wiped the tears off her cheek. “Don’t cry, V,” he whispered.

Tears slipped down her cheeks. 

He looked at the rest of his family. Diego and Allison looked sad. Luther and Mom looked confused. Pogo looked guilty. Five looked ill. Ben looked furious.

Mom brightened, looking at Ben. She stood up and her heels clicked across the floor. She placed a hand on his shoulder, “Oh, Ben! It’s so good to see you! Klaus said you could talk to me later after the- after… “ She petered off, sounding unsure.

Klaus looked over at Pogo, who had shrunken down in his seat. Trying to make himself smaller.

Klaus looked at Ben, “Hey, Ducky, I think I get-”

The world was so vivid, black spots and noises everywhere. It hurt. He should… he should lie down. Just for a moment. Rest his eyes.

His head hurts. He fumbled for Ben’s poem. 

He does… he does not have to be good.

He does not have to be good.

__________________

There was a steady beeping to his side, and he rolled over to bury himself further under the warmth of the covers. As per usual, he is cold.

He breathes in and stills. 

This is not his apartment. If it were, Litter would be stretched across his face and suffocating him. Much like Ben, whose tentacles would wrap around him until he could hardly breathe.

His little psychos.

He slowly blinked his eyes open, and he was in the infirmary. The infirmary?

He tries to remember the last thing that happened…

Oh.

Dad.

It always comes back to this.

Back to his father, and to this house, and these people who claim to be his siblings, but are more like strangers wearing a familiar shell. 

This family was never a family.

It was a prison. A cage.

Ben peeks his head through the infirmary door.

“I left to feed Litter, are you okay? What do you remember?”

Klaus snorts, “I’m never okay. I remember everything.”

He sits up and it’s like moving through fog. He feels like a ghost.

Just slipping through.

He slides his feet off the feed and walks toward Ben, “Where’s the siesta at?”

He doesn’t need to ask, he can feel the weight of their dead. Clouding the house. 

It’s morning. He must have slept through the night. 

Hmm, maybe overexerting himself is the cure to insomnia.

He walks down the hallway toward the kitchen. He walks lightly on his feet, no need to exhaust himself.

The conversation is hushed, so he slips in quietly. He does his best to pretend not to notice as it comes to an abrupt stop.

He busies himself with pouring two glasses of orange juice before he sets one at his spot and one at Ben’s.

He looks at his siblings, who watch him, with something like pity.

“What?” He asks defensively.

Luther looks down at his oatmeal, glumly, “Is he… was he always like that?”

Klaus looks down at his orange juice. He hadn’t thought Reginald had acted anymore or less unusual than normal, “What do you mean? He was the same as always…”

Ben grimaced next to him. Luther makes a wounded little noise.

Vanya clears her throat, “Are you feeling okay? Your powers… I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Yeah, I’m just tired, and a little woozy.”

Allison smiles at him, “I’m glad you’re feeling better. Now, Five wanted to hold a family meeting. I think we need to be on the same page here.”

Five sits straighter in his chair, and his mouth settles into a little grimace. It’s cute, on his little face.

“The Apocalypse will happen in one week. April 1st. When I left, I went to the future. There was nothing. No one. For forty-five years. I came back, and I’m going to stop-,” he takes a breath and looks down at his hands, face pinched, “we’re going to stop it.”

The apocalypse, huh? He looked at Ben, who nodded. That probably explained a lot of whatever bullshit is happening right now. He should feel shocked or scared but mostly he feels resigned. 

Detached…

Then he looked at Five.

He was so small but he was so much older. He had been an arrogant child and he grew without them. He doesn't know them and they don't know him. He wanted to though. Five had never been kind and had never been weak. He wasn’t now, but Klaus could see the tension in his shoulders.

He stood straight and made direct eye contact with them all, almost challengingly.

_Oh Five, you’ve forgotten how to be taken care of._

_That’s okay. We can learn with you._

“Okay.” He said abruptly. He could’ve joked. Maybe he should’ve.

He just looked at Five and tried to make him understand.

“O-okay? I’ve been gone, alone, for forty-five years and all you’ve got is ‘okay’?” Five looked at them wildly.

“Yes, Five. You’ve been gone. Now, you’re back. Here. So, okay, I believe you. And, okay, I will help.”

Vanya nods her head and reaches out to touch Five, who flinches away. 

He does sit back down, however.

“What about everyone else?”

Allison and Luther nod, reluctantly. Klaus doesn’t know what he expected. Denial? Anger? Acceptance?

Diego nodded, too. After a little kick under the table. Diego glared at Klaus, who smiled back innocently.

“Okay, I think we need to compile all of our information. Five, do you still have those whiteboards? Dad did actually say one useful thing last night.” Said Klaus, who downed the rest of his orange juice, before smiling sharply.

“Now,” he drawled, “where the fuck is Pogo?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys! um sorry for the extremely long wait... I have been exhausted with finals and now its summer! so hopefully updates will be more frequent. i have not been motivated and with everything going on I've had a busy week. I live in Louisville so the protests are fucking batshit insane. Tear-gas and bullets and batons and cars on fire everywhere. Justice for Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Also all the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking royal family drama is crazy. The celebrities in the little black book make me sick. 
> 
> To get back on track, however, I am sorry this one is shorter but the scenes were much longer than the usual for me so that's why. I hope you like the little glimpse into Five's head, I just wanted an outside perspective of Klaus. Anyways, any thoughts you have PLEASE PLEASE SHARE. They are why I write and the validation is honestly kind of addicting. 
> 
> xoxo winnie


	6. running errands

They find Pogo, alone in his study. He sits at the table, looking at some paperwork. His face is wrinkled. His hair is grey. He’s old.

He looks over at them and his face is weary and uncomfortable.

Five growls out, “Dad told us you would explain. Explain what, exactly?”

Pogo stands on his feet before walking out of the room, “Come along. I think we should all sit down for this.”

They all followed him to the kitchen and sat at the table.

“Your father was a complicated man,” he ignored the derisive snorts from Diego and Klaus, “he did and said many things in the name of the Umbrella Academy that were… in your best interests. Whether we understood or not.”

Luther nodded, and Allison looked down at the table, avoiding looking at them.

Klaus’ chest burned with anger. His fingers turned to fists.

Five snorted, “Enough with the propaganda spiel, get on with it.”

Pogo sighed, “Your father thought that, in order to bring back the academy, he would have to resort to drastic measures to get you all here. He… he needed the full force of the academy.”

His shoulders stiffened, there’s no way.

There’s no way Reginald would have… killed himself. 

Klaus looked at his siblings. They looked confused.

Vanya asked, “But what for?”

Five’s hands gripped on tightly to the wooden table, “For the apocalypse. We were meant to save the world.”

Ben’s hand dug into Klaus’. They knew. They knew that there was something fucked up. That Reginald should have had no way of understanding that Five couldn’t handle time travel.

Klaus looked at Pogo, before everything burst out of him at once, “There’s no way, no fucking way that he killed himself to do this! No! That old bastard couldn’t have placed a couple of calls? A letter? No. He did this because he was a coward. Pogo, how did he know? How could he have known that we were even meant to save the world? That it needed saving in the first place? How did he know we even had powers in the first place?”

His chest heaved and he swallowed the lump in his throat. You could hear a pin drop, in the silence that followed. Pogo stared down at his lap. Five tried to keep himself together, but Klaus could see his brain spinning at a million miles an hour.

Luther, of course, was the first to speak up, “Kill himself?”

Pogo sighed, “He thought he had no choice. He changed Grace’s code, so she couldn’t help him. I swore myself to secrecy.”

Diego growled, “He did what?”

Luther stood up from the table, knocking his chair over, “I-I need to… to go.” He stumbled out of the room.

Diego left the kitchen, in pursuit of Mom, probably. 

Five disappeared with a blue pop. 

Allison stood up and hastily left.

Vanya stared at Pogo, her eyes filled with tears, and she knocked off the hand he tried to rest on her shoulder. 

She stood awkwardly at the door, “Klaus? I’m leaving.”

Klaus smiled up at the ceiling. _Fan-fucking-tastic._

“Master Klaus-”

“Can it, Curious George.”

______________________

Klaus stared up at the ceiling and tried his best to breathe in and out. 

The world spun around him, dizzying and confusing and so different from before.

He didn’t know when everything had spiraled out of his control but he felt helpless and angry and in shock.

Reginald Hargreeves. A man who knew too much and explained very little.

In the confusion, they hadn’t even cornered him about Ben.

He curled into a tight ball and shut his eyes and pretended he couldn’t hear the shrieking and moaning from outside his door. 

Best to do what he does best, avoid and deflect. 

He woke up an hour later. The air felt disturbed and he stiffened minutely. Five huffed from the corner of the room. 

“I know you’re awake.”

He shimmed the blankets off and planted his feet on the floor, lifting an eyebrow at Five.

“Are you busy?”

Klaus smiled, “Non, mon frere, but we have to run one errand first.”

He jumped to his feet and planted a kiss on Five’s cheek. 

Out of common courtesy, Ben pretended not to notice the pained look in Five’s eye when he thought no one could see him.

____________________

“Welcome to La Casa de Klaus!” Klaus twirled around in his living room and held his arms wide open, showcasing his underappreciated interior design skills. Five denied his offer to carry him across the threshold.

Litter trotted over from her cat bed and weaved in and out of his legs. She peered up at Five who looked at her with something close to obsession, worship, or adoration. She meowed and he reached down and patted her clumsily on the head.

He wondered if there were cats in the apocalypse.

Klaus skipped over to his closet and stuffed clothes into his bag and then headed to the kitchen. Scooping some of her food into a dish, he called over his shoulder, “Do you think I should leave her here or take her to the Academy?”

Five responded cuttingly, “What does it matter? She’ll die wherever she is.”

His shoulders tensed and he turned on his heel, glaring. Five’s eyes were big and dark on his young face, but his gaze was old and hardened. Best not to forget, not everything is as it seems.

Five looked around the kitchen and living room. Shoes and clothes tossed haphazardly on the ground. Bookshelves lined the walls, painstakingly arranged in the Dewey Decimal system. The kitchen was neat and orderly, and the cookbooks lined the back of one cabinet. He looked at Klaus. 

“You don’t live alone.”

Klaus’ reply was cryptic, “I never have.” Five supposes that’s true. He’d never given that much thought, Before. 

“We saw Ben.”

Klaus nodded. 

“I want to see him again.” 

Klaus looked over his shoulder and shrugged. He raised his hands and swiped through the air. Ben popped into existence from where he sat atop the kitchen counter.

He grinned at Five and waved. 

Five waved stiffly back. He didn’t move any closer.

Klaus didn’t know what to expect from Five. He was not the boy he once knew. He was still arrogant and annoying sure… but this Five was brittle and made of sharper edges. 

“No one mentioned that you were still here.”

Ben snorted, “No one wanted to believe. Whenever Klaus mentions me they all sort of… clam up.”

Five frowned, “But… Klaus’ power is literally that he can see the dead.”

Klaus smiled down at his feet, “In this family, de Nile is not just a river in Egypt. You’d do best to remember that. Besides, I supposedly can’t see the dead when I’m high. Which apparently is always.”

He pretended to ignore Five’s comments about _dysfunctional idiotic family stupid weak blah blah blah._

Klaus sighed and picked up Litter, “I guess we better take her. Live our last days in style, huh?”

Five glared, “Can we leave now? And change your outfit, please, we need to be respected, not arrested for public indecency.”

__________________________

Klaus stared up at the big glass building before him, and looked down at Five, “Wanna hold my hand?”

The look Five shot him was pure malice, and he stomped his foot hard on Klaus’ shoe. 

“Ow! Motherfucker!”

The secretary led them into an office. Klaus eyed the man in front of him. He reeked of straight white mediocrity. This would do nicely. 

“Now what seems to be the problem here?” Grant or Brad or whatever his name was questioned. 

“I need to know who this belongs to,” gritted Five, and he grabbed a _glass fucking eyeball_ out of his pocket and slammed it on Grant’s desk.

This... could be a problem. I guess 45 years being the only person alive couldn’t help your social skills.

“Where did you get that?”

Five smiled, which just looked disturbing on his face, “The playground. Now, I want to return this to the rightful owner.”

“Well, you see, patient records are strictly confidential. That means I can’t tell you-”

“I know what that means!”

Grant sighed, before looking at the two of them, “Look, how about you let your son hand over the eye and we can return it?”

Klaus smiled, “Sorry, sir, but we’d really like to do ourselves, as an, uh, act of charity?”

Grant sighed, “But without the owner’s consent-”

“We can’t get consent if you don’t give us a name!” Five stood up and glared at Grant.

“Well, that’s not my problem.” Grant smiled his smarmy little smile and Klaus smirked. 

“And what about my consent?” Klaus put on his most innocent and confused expression. Ben watched closely from where he leaned against the window. Klaus formed his roughest, stupidest plan. They’ve all worked out so far. Maybe.

“Excuse me?” 

“Who gave you permission,” he paused to let a few tears roll down his face, “to lay your hands on my son?”

Both Five and Grant looked at him like he had lost his marbles. He probably had. 

“What?” Grant asked, clearly baffled. Ben glanced between him and Five, smiling wide. Ben always did love his drama.

“You heard me.”

“I didn’t touch your son,” he ground out, growing more and more irritated. Perfect. 

“Oh, really? How’d he get that swollen lip then?”

“He doesn’t have a swollen-”

Klaus leaped from his chair, striking Five across the face with the flat of his palm. _Oops, my apologies._

He walked over to Grant’s desk, towering over him. “I want it. Name. _Now.”_

Grant looked up at him, eyes wide, “You’re crazy.”

Klaus smiled sharply, “You got no idea,” Grant looked around his office, before Klaus noticed the snow globe on his desk, “Peace on Earth! That’s so sweet!”

He picked it up and slammed it into his forehead, hard. Five watched on in shock. Grant cried out, clearly conflicted. 

Glass shattered everywhere and covered him with water and chunks of glitter. He flinched as blood ran down his face and the glass cut into his forehead. Grant reached for the phone but Klaus got there first, “There’s been an assault in Mr. Big’s office! We need security now. Schnell!” He slammed it back in the receiver. 

He leaned over Grant, “Now, here’s what’s gonna happen, Grant,” he ignored his muttering, “In about 60 seconds, two security guards are gonna burst through the door, and they’re gonna see a whole lotta blood, and they’re gonna wonder ‘What the hell happened?’ And we’re gonna tell them that you beat the shit out of us!” He sobbed dramatically before smiling. He could feel the blood drip out of his mouth and he swallowed against the taste.

“You’re gonna do great in prison, Grant. Trust me, I’ve been there. Little piece of chicken like you. Oh, my god, you’re gonna passed around like a…,” He took the time to swivel his hips, “You’re just- you’re gonna do great. That’s all I’m saying.” He smiled broadly. 

Grant paled, “Jesus, you’re a real sick bastard.”

Klaus smiled, “Thank you,” He spat out a piece of glass.

Alas, it was all for naught. The eye hadn’t been manufactured yet. Mr. Big stuttered through a weak apology. 

Klaus leaned against the table and batted his eyelashes, “Are you sure about that?”

He ignored Five’s dismissive sigh. 

Mr. Big glanced at him, disgusted, “I- I’m telling the truth, I am.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Klaus spotted a girl, roughly 17, her hair a mess and clothes ripped, ring of blue bruises around her neck. _Disgusting._

She walked forward, choking on sobs, “I’m Mary.”

“Telling the truth? Mary thinks not. She knows you’re a practiced liar, actually.”

Klaus hoped that he knew her name, and sure enough Mr. Big paled and took a step back, “How can you possibly know a-about that?” He eyed the exits to the room.

Klaus smiled, “I think maybe I could forget easier if I had a little compensation for what happened here.” 

“I can give you money. I can get you whatever you want!”

Five stamped his foot, “What we _need_ is that eye! You’ll call us when it’s sold, won’t you?” Five smiled his biggest smile.

Mr. Big stammered, “C-certainly! Yes, of course.”

Klaus grabbed Mr. Big’s arm and ignored his full-body shiver. He wrote down the mansion’s phone number. 

He and Five stalked away, and Klaus called over his shoulder, “Call me!”

_________________________

Five glanced over at him, in the car, he pursed his lips, “We make an alright team.”

Klaus stifled a giggle, coming from Five that was practically a thank you. 

“I can do a lot when I please.”

Five pulled out a first aid kit and blotted the blood off of Klaus’s forehead, and wiped the cuts clean with an alcohol wipe.

He looked down at Five, looking 13 but sitting in the driver's seat, “It’ll be alright.”

Five looked at him with suspicion but also hope. 

It'll be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhhhhhhhhh...... anyways hi guys. love how i said i could write more because of summer and now its freaking october but whatever.
> 
> i apologize for the super short chapter, but it will have to tide you over. i just wanted to say that this story has not been abandoned and I have no intentions of leaving it behind regardless of if I update a chapter once a week or once a year. 
> 
> on to other issues! season two. i stopped writing waiting for season 2 to see what I could incorporate into this and I never made it through. i still haven't finished it. I'm pretty sure I have adhd which is why I have so many issues like this but I want to say please don't discuss the season because i am going to go in very different directions than that. it just didn't capture me and the whole everything about it, slight disappointment. 
> 
> this story i have read like a million times and it seems all so cliche and naive at points, so there will probably be a rewrite and edit of it coming soon to try and keep it on the right path.
> 
> with that said, thank you for your continued support thru this and take care. please leave comments they make my day   
> xoxox winnie

**Author's Note:**

> hi! ive never written anything but poetry before so im new at this! any critcism is welcome. anyways if anyone is reading comment i would like validation because i worked really hard on this. THANKS
> 
> xoxo- winnie


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